


Once Upon a Time: Underground

by LA_Knight



Series: Once Upon a Time: A Silverlance Fanfiction Series [1]
Category: Celtic Mythology, Hellboy (Movies), Scottish Mythology
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-04 19:43:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 60,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12778134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LA_Knight/pseuds/LA_Knight
Summary: Once upon a time, a pack of wolves in human skin hunted a mortal maiden through an underground labyrinth of metal and stone. They hunted her, caught her...only for her to be rescued by a beast out of a fairytale.Dylan Myers is more than a lost little girl in the subway. A youth psychiatrist with the Sight, she has lived her entire life fighting for the lives and livelihood of the Fair Folk. Though her family thinks she's crazy, though her dedication to the Fae has cost her a great deal in her twenty-eight years, her heart remains true to her cause.Prince Nuada is the exiled heir to the Bethmooran throne. A broken heart masked by a scarred, bitter shell, through centuries of grief he has come to believe humans are irredeemable; for the sake of his people, mankind must be exterminated.Then, one night, compelled by honor and memory, Nuada rescues Dylan. Injured and on the verge of death, he has no choice but to trust his enemy to save him. And in learning to trust each other, Dylan and Nuada will embark on a journey that could change the fate of humans and Fair Folk alike.





	1. Little Red and the Big Bad

**Author's Note:**

> Added at 2:23AM on 11/25/17: I'm adding this here as a reminder before every chapter, since people are apparently skipping them: READ THE WARNINGS. This fanfic deals with a lot of dark material. I have warnings at the beginning of every chapter that are specific to each chapter and there are warnings in the summary. READ THEM.
> 
> For the record, you guys, I had to disable Anonymous commenting because my cyber stalker decided they wanted to harass me in the comments section and I got fed up with having to erase all of their spam comments. So unfortunately you guys cannot comment on this story without being logged in. You can, however, leave Kudos and you can still review. I am sorry for the inconvenience.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Dylan is hunted and brutalized by a pack of wolves in human skin, Nuada wrestles with his own horrific memories...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned in the Archive Warnings, this fanfic has graphic depictions of violence and rape/non-consensual sex. This fanfic also features discussions/instances/mentions of alcohol abuse, drug abuse, mental illness, PTSD, flashbacks, and other traumatic things. These things appear in this chapter, along with non-sexual assault, blood, gun violence, misogynistic language, emotional and physical torture, disfiguration, panic attacks, racism, and mentions of war and genocide.

**1\. Little Red and the Big Bad**

**that is**

**A Short Tale of a Lost Maiden, a Pack of Wolves, Some Instructions, and a Beast in the Subway**

Every word is a part of a picture. Every sentence is (or can be) a picture.

The reader uses their imagination to put those pictures together, and the pictures weave together to form the intricate tapestry that is a story.

There are many kinds of stories in the world: comedies, love stories, adventures, tragedies. Stories of laughter and love, warriors and sorrow. Each story has a beginning, a middle, and an ending (though what story can ever be said to ever truly end? Tellers of tales throughout the long centuries would dare anyone to find such a story). The magic of the story begins with those oft spoken words, " _Once upon a time_ …"

And then there are the best kinds of stories to be had, the ones that have a little bit of everything.

Faerie tales.

In faerie tales, there is a man. He may be a proud prince or he may be a humble soldier. He may possess magic from a genie's lamp or the condescension of a good faerie creature met in the dark woods and treated with kindness. Perhaps he slays the dragon. Perhaps he saves the beautiful princess in her tower. Perhaps the prince loses his kingdom to an evil wizard. Perhaps the humble soldier inherits a kingdom from a dying king.

Then there is the woman. She may be a beautiful princess or she may be a simple peasant maid. She may have a voice like angels singing or be trapped beneath an ancient and terrible curse from a wicked faerie. Maybe she heals a beast in the forest. Maybe she breaks the enchantment on a sleeping prince. Maybe the princess runs into the labyrinth to escape the monsters that so mercilessly hunt her. Maybe the simple peasant maid marries the prince and lives happily ever after.

And in faerie tales there is evil. Pure, dark, and vicious. An insidious poison that hounds the maiden's footsteps or haunts the prince on his quest. There is evil in the world, as well—always has been, always will be. Evil needs no excuses. It needs no promptings. It only needs to catch the scent of prey, to feel the adrenaline pumping and taste the fear on the air…

**.**

Once upon a time, under the burning fluorescent lights of the nearly empty New York City subway, a pack of human wolves loped after their chosen prey. Bared teeth gleamed like moonlight on knife blades. And they could smell with their beasts' noses the delicious musk of a woman's fear.

She didn't want to run. Her legs burned and her lungs screamed. A stitch ripped through her side. But she didn't know how long it would take for them to overtake her if she didn't run. And if she were overtaken, they would most likely kill her for what she'd done to (and for) one of their own. If they didn't kill her, she would wish that they had.

So she ran. Her long, brown hair streamed out behind her in ridiculous ringlets. She'd been on her way home from the salon. She'd gone there simply to make herself look nice for no reason. No reason at all. Just because she could. Because her twenty-ninth birthday was approaching, would come in a little more than two weeks. Because she was happy and had the time and her sisters said she ought to (and for once, she'd agreed with them). She'd spent the day pampering herself because she wanted to.

It had brought the wolves down on her like a killing plague. So now she ran. The glass and stone on the concrete walkways cut her bare feet. She hadn't bothered holding onto her brand new high heels. They were just shoes—she could buy more. She did, however, clutch at her purse. The large, leather, satchel-like purse held some of her most treasured items. It slowed her down, but she didn't care.

Slowing down would nearly get her and the strange one killed. She  _would_ care about that.

She glanced over her shoulder. Desperately tried to gauge how far behind her enemies were. Tried to catch a glimpse of the red jackets like blood against the dingy gray of the subway tunnels. Suddenly she tripped over a homeless man lying across the pavement. She hit the ground—and the corpse—hard.

It ended up saving her life. A bullet slammed deep into the grubby tiles on the subway walls. She shrieked and glanced into the homeless man's face. Rheumy eyes stared back at her. She choked on the cloying, too-sweet stench of alcohol and death.

Sucking in the air she'd wasted in screaming, she jumped up and kept going. Kept running. Kept choking on her own terror and tears. Kept praying the monsters behind her wouldn't try to shoot at her again. It wasn't as if she could hide anywhere. There was nowhere to go.

Her right knee throbbed with every step. She'd whacked it good on the pavement. The flesh of her face burned where the men chasing her had cut her with their knives. The blood dripped into her eyes and mouth. Just the thought of those fear-bright knives made a sob catch in her raw throat.

She shivered as icy blasts of air gelled her fear-sweat to her body. She'd dropped her heavy, black leather jacket some ways back. Like her heels, it had slowed her down. Now she was so very cold in the freezing December air. Cold and sick and chilled with the fear. Her throat burned as she heaved in great lungfuls of air.

She didn't look over her shoulder again. She didn't have to. They caught a good fistful of her hair and yanked. She jerked out of their hold. Lost some hair in the process. They caught it again. Gave it a good, hard haul. Against her will, she was yanked off her feet. She smashed into the ground. But the fist in her face, braced by four brass rings, shot her straight up into the air again, and into outer space. Too dazed to scream, she floundered and gasped for air. Steel-toed boots connected with her flesh and passed through to bruise her bones. Then the knife flicked out. Burned like pain under the fluorescents. A dark shadow knelt above her and touched ice-cold steel to her cheek. She mumbled something under her breath, but with all the sneering and jeering from the wolves in human form, they didn't hear it.

It sounded an awful lot like, "Trust the wolves, but do not tell them where you are going."

Then the blade sank into her skin. Blood flowed.

And she began to scream.

**.**

Nuada had no intention of interfering. He was quite otherwise engaged.

Even as he subconsciously made that decision, he flicked the spill of star-blond hair out of his face with a toss of his head and continued to spin and strike with the silvery twin war-axes in his hands. Sweat trickled down his scarred back as he moved with savage, primal grace, a pale jungle cat preparing for battle. Perspiration gleamed on his forehead, in the lines of his defined muscles, across his scarred chest. The muscles coiled and bunched beneath the flesh of his forearms as he struggled to become as proficient with these rather unwieldy weapons as he was with the knife, sword, and lance. The axe was  _not_ a favored weapon, but as a warrior, he needed to become equally adept at using any and all blades, not just those he favored.

His old friend, the only one who had followed him into exile—a rather large silver cave troll nicknamed Mr. Wink—watched as the prince worked himself to the point of exhaustion. How long had the prince been training? Five hours? Six? Longer? He could see the fatigue in the Elf's relentless movements. See that he strained to move as if he were whole and healthy, though it was plain to Wink that the prince was not. When was the last time Nuada had actually slept?

The troll knew that nothing he could say would force Nuada to take it easy, rest a little. No. Honor, the way of the warrior, chivalry, valor, physical prowess; that was what mattered to the Elven prince. That, and his vindictive vendetta against the race of Man. His desire to find the final piece of the Golden Crown—the prince's proper inheritance—and use it and the other two pieces to awaken the Golden Army.

Once awakened, Wink knew Nuada would command the Army to slaughter all the humans who dared stand against him and the other faerie kingdoms. He would drive the humans out of the fey forests and out of their cities of poisonous concrete and burning steel. Thrust them back to their primitive caves, where they would huddle in fear of the living darkness. Then he would raze those noxious cities to the ground. Nothing would stand in the Elven warrior's way—not even the demands of his own healing body. Instead the prince would attempt to sweat out the iron sickness and the last vestiges of poison.

Their power meant fae royalty didn't have to worry about the iron that infected human cities. Usually. And when it  _did_  become too much for the magic running through immortal blood, there were troll potions to combat the effects. But even then, the humans' lead and iron could still be a problem. Especially when a virulent faerie poison also sludged through royal veins. Yet the Elven prince pressed on, training. Making ready for the coming war, and the slaughter of the ravenous humans.

Nuada knew what Wink was thinking. He allowed his lips to quirk into a brief, humorless smile for a moment before returning his focus to the training at hand. Wink knew him quite well. Yes, he had a vendetta against the humans. They were hollow, wicked, vicious…little better than animals. So no, he would not help the woman.

The crown prince of the Elven kingdom of Bethmoora was cynical, jaded, angry, and brooding. He had only three loves in his life—three motivating loves, at least—and those were for his beloved twin sister, Nuala; his father, Balor, called the One-Armed King of Elfland, who still commanded the prince's loyalty from the far-off court of Bethmoora; and Nuada's love for his people. He trained night and day, giving himself only time to eat, sleep, and bathe, in preparation for the war that he knew was going to come one day. Nothing stayed or slowed him—not pain, not exhaustion, not illness. The feral-eyed warrior would not allow it.

He  _despised_ humans; hated the entire breed. They were greedy, selfish vermin that deserved to be butchered like the empty, hollow meat they were. One day, as the crown prince, as his father's son, as the prince of the Elves of Bethmoora, he would raise the Golden Army and use them to massacre the humans, and exact vengeance for their broken vows and the brutal rapine they had committed against the world. It was the last resort of a desperate people, but it was all he could do to protect his kind. And he  _would_  protect the Fair Folk.

So he had no intention of helping a foolish mortal woman who ought to have known better than to wander the subway at night alone like an idiot sheep. She deserved the mugging she would receive. What was a few gaudy, valueless trinkets lost to human predators? Instead, Nuada focused on pushing through the fatigue and last vestiges of weakness from a bout with iron sickness. Gods curse this disgusting mortal city and the poisons that saturated the place. Even he could be brought low by such things for a time. Especially when first made ill by whatever coward had sicced the dipsa serpent on him only a few moons ago.

Then he caught the hideous scent of evil male desire.

It was thick, musky, seminal. It disgusted him. Choked him. His nostrils stung with it, as did his eyes. It was the stench of perverted arousal, cruelty, and the sickly scent of wolf skins. Of predators. He had to swallow quickly as bile rose in his throat. For a moment the prince recalled emerald eyes glazed with shock and pain. Golden blood soaking into hair like spun garnets. The agonized screams of women and children, some he knew far too well. Grief sharp as a lance in his belly. Desperation. And other memories, newer, fresher, choking him, roiling in his belly. He swallowed again, trying to block out the echoes of his own screams, memories of the burn of thirst in his throat and gnawing hunger in the pit of his stomach, the nauseating ache of his bones and the weight of his torturers pinning him—

Nuada shook off the centuries' old memories, but could not shield himself from the foul reek in the air.

"My prince?" His friend, Wink, questioned softly. He had seen the horrified, sickened look on the Elven prince's face. "What do you sense? "

"A woman…mortal. And wolves." His voice was oddly distant, musing, as if he were commenting on the weather. But Wink had seen the revulsion in feral eyes like molten bronze. Seen the phantoms of the past in those eyes. "They hunted her. They have caught her. They mean to rape her. Torture her. Kill her. Because…"

He could taste the faintest traces of their thoughts, that pack of wolves. They had hunted this woman for vengeance. Because she had taken one of their own away from them to someplace safe. They had dogged her footsteps in secret for weeks, searching for the opportune moment to strike. And they struck this night, sought to dishonor the woman with their vile lust, because she wore a red dress and had curled her long brown hair. That was all. Those were their reasons. They would rape, torture, and murder a woman because of…

Before Wink had finished processing the prince's words, Nuada was striding from his subterranean home, motioning for Wink to remain. Over his shoulder, the Elf called, "Stay here, my friend. I want to make sure my…home away from home…is well guarded. Don't wait up for me."

And he began to run, to race, like a silver wind through the pillars of the New York Underground. He'd thought it would be a simple mugging. He'd been wrong. With Danu's mercy and the stars' grace, he would arrive in time to prevent any more than that.

 _If there is one thing I despise more than humans,_ Nuada thought, the embers of long-banked fury fueled by old grief smoldering to life,  _it is a coward. And a man who preys on those weaker than they is the worst sort of coward_. And rape. Memories tried to crowd his mind at the thought, but he ruthlessly shoved them aside. He had his reasons for despising the act. _No woman, mortal or otherwise, is to be raped when I am there to stop it. I will not bear witness to anymore atrocities until I must._

_No more._

**.**

It was like a hammer. They beat her body. Pounded against her. Inside her. She was drowning in the burning pain and the blood. She could taste both running down her throat, choking her like poison. Her legs had long since been rendered numb by blows and cuts from the knife. She no longer had the energy to do more than push at her attackers. Too many blades of flesh and steel had sliced through her hold on reality. She was floating, or drowning—she couldn't decide which. Strangely, she smelled forests, and tasted the musk of wolf fur on her lips. Concrete burned cold as ice through her ripped dress, bit into her battered shoulders. Her face was a sheet of fire. Distantly, she felt something tear inside her. Felt more hot blood come. Vaguely registered the new pain.

 _Not again,_ her mind—and her memories—screamed at her over and over again.  _Not again, please not again, not_  again…

But the pain and the icy cold and the crushing weight above her smothered the plea. Snarled at her,  _Yes, again. Again and again. Yes._

Then the hammer blows inside and around her were still, and she was granted blessed respite. She drew a gurgling breath, and barely managed to keep from choking on the blood in her mouth. She spat it on the ground and blinked as the darkness above her moved away, allowing the dim fluorescent light to kiss her eyes. She groaned as the feeling began to return to her legs. Cried out in shock and agony when a foot connected solidly with the side of her face. Fire erupted under her cheek. Added fuel to the burning.

"Don't think we're finished, honey," the rough, bestial voice growled. "We just got us an interruption, that's all." And he kicked her again, in the ribs. Something cracked, and she rolled and hunched in on herself. Couldn't catch her breath even to whimper.

"You will not touch her again."

The voice that spoke was ice-cold and clear as fresh spring water in the mountains. It made her teeth ache to hear it—or that might have been the throbbing in her skull from the beating she'd so recently received. She blinked past the haze of pain, and beyond the dark mountain of her attacker standing in front of her, out of the eye that wasn't swollen shut, she saw boots.

She couldn't focus beyond the boots. Black leather laced up the sides, supple, but scuffed and worn, as if they were old and had seen much use. It was amazing, what things she noticed as her limbs jerked helplessly and her head throbbed, as blood seeped from her body.

For a strange, bizarre moment when the entire world became one surreal dream, she thought she saw a cat standing in those boots, a large pale cat the color of fresh cream with golden eyes like the blood of ancient trees. A lion intent on the kill. Then it shifted to look like an ivory hound with firegold eyes and teeth bared in challenge. But then she blinked again, trying to focus on the soft, white fur of either beast, and the strange phantom-creature disappeared as her vision blurred.

Shuddering, she tried to prop herself up on her skinned elbow, or at least a forearm, but that was rendered nigh impossible by the shooting pain that lanced from her shoulder to her wrist.

"She your woman?"

The voice that demanded this information was gruff, accented with a touch of Brooklyn's tang. It made its victim shiver at the sound of it. She curled up, trying to remain inconspicuous enough that they forgot about her. If they forgot about her, she could get up and run.

Maybe.

The mysterious speaker made a sharp sound of disgust. "Women are not property."

She had to look again, even though something deep inside screamed at her not to do it. The voice was so cold and deadly it seemed to freeze her marrow; to crystallize her blood. She raised a trembling hand to brush her damp-sticky hair from her bleeding face and saw a man, his flesh so shockingly pale in the dim subway light it was tinted with blue under the fluorescents. Silver hair that slowly morphed to pale gold hung past muscular shoulders. Firegold eyes shot with crimson were set in shadowed sockets, and his lips were dark as night. An intricate scar slashed across his race. She quaked at the sight of him, though she didn't know why. A strange sense of familiarity shivered through her. An odd sense of familiarity, and a very healthy dose of fear. And just a glimmer of hope?

If the men who had tortured her were a pack of wolves, this man was a beast out of a faerie tale. He carried in each hand a silver-bladed axe on a gold-etched black handle. The blades gleamed like pain. The beams of fluorescents hit the cruel edges, giving off intangible sparks of starlight that burned her good eye with their brilliance. Strange, savage death kissed every line of those weapons.

 _They would do well to run,_  she thought absently. More lucidly, she prayed,  _Heavenly Father…help me. Please…_

"Look,  _eśe_ —dis ain't none of your business. The  _puta_  and us, we got ourselves an understanding—"

With a look full of loathing and dark fury, the pale warrior snarled, "Be quiet."

Years later, she would try to describe, to her children, to her brother and sisters, to the people who would adopt her into their strange family, what had happened that night. Some of them would never understand, but her children and her family—as yet to be gained—would understand what she meant when she said that one moment, the blond man had been standing there, aloof and isolated from the group of brutal human predators, and the next, he was crouched over the man who had so recently taken his turn with her, an axe-blade buried in the human wolf's back. A fine spray of crimson blood arced across her savior's nearly-white chest.

She tried to gasp, but her throat, squeezed until bruises circled her pale neck like a necklace of shadows, was swollen nearly shut. Trying to draw such a deep breath made her nearly choke. Despite her pain, her bruises, her blood staining the concrete, something told her that the pack, despite the Beast's presence, was still dangerous. She  _had_  to get up.

In the time it took her to make that decision, the blond warrior had struck down four of the nine men who'd set upon her. He leapt to decapitate a fifth, when a sixth one, cowering on the ground and feigning death, suddenly struck out with something that glinted star pain bright in the light of the overhead fluorescents. The steel knife bit into the man's calf, right above the ankle. She tried to gasp and choked again. Had the cut severed her rescuer's Achilles tendon?

The pale man fell to one knee with a cry that was more rage than pain, and the blade descended again, sinking into the meat of one shoulder. Blond hair flew as his head jerked back and his spine bowed, his body instinctively flinching away from the weapon.

The brunette woman he had fought to rescue glanced around frantically as she scrambled to at least sit on her butt and not be prostrate on her back. Every movement sent burning needles of sensation down her previously numbed legs. She ignored the feeling, casting around for her purse until she found it lying a couple feet away. In it she kept rocks, a habit from her college days that had never gone away. With hands that shook, she pulled out a good-sized stone and hurled it. Her arm screamed at her as she did, protesting the abuse it had suffered, and her aim fell short. She'd been aiming for the man with the knife, trying to hit his temple.

She got him in the back.

The stone projectile had the desired effect, however. The man with the blade whirled to look at her, his face purple with rage, contorting viciously. She tried to move back, but her arms, which she had to use to move herself, to hold herself up, buckled at the elbows, unable to take her weight. She fell to the ground once more. Her head cracked the pavement. The man had enough time to take a single menacing step toward her before something silver arced across his throat. He took another step, stumbled, and his head fell from his shoulders. The man whom the blond rescuer had been attempting to kill when the knife blade had interrupted him lay dead as well.

Six wolves down, three to go. She was feeling pretty good about those odds until she heard the crack of the gunshot. It echoed through her skull. She couldn't hide her wince, couldn't muffle her scream. The white-skinned man stumbled. Staggered. Her eyes registered the gunshot wound, black against the moon-pale flesh. Dark amber blood streamed from the wound.

Crimson-washed bronze eyes sunk within darkness like rings of smudged kohl met a frightened blue gaze shadowed by bruises. Rage, regret, relief, staggering pain and almost brutal exhaustion—they warred amongst themselves behind his eyes. She felt something akin to a sob hiccup in the back of her throat. Her own regret burned. She swallowed it, swallowed her panic, trying to wet her throat. It was swollen and hot saliva would wet it enough for her to speak, at least a little.

She climbed unsteadily to her feet, body shuddering. Hot blood streaked her skin, soaked her stockings. She stumbled toward her rescuer even as she raised a trembling arm to point at one of the men approaching him from behind. The pale warrior whipped around and the axe blades sank down between neck and shoulders on either side, rending flesh from clavicle to bottom ribs.

Seven dead. Only two left. At least, that's how it seemed. But a sharp, cold  _zing_  through her chest warned her. There was danger approaching. They had to get away. Her instincts screamed, and her panic surged. She had to get them both out of there, right now. Something horrible would happen if they remained. Even as she was fighting panic, she was forming a plan—half a crazed idea, rather, but it was all she could think of.

He glanced at her, and something in his eyes told her to run if she could. But she couldn't. She couldn't leave him. His injuries were horrible. He could very well die here, alone in the subway, because he had tried to protect her from the scum of New York City. The idea made her heart burn like a candle flame. It gave her the power to croak, "Behind you!"

He turned, and the spiked hafts of the axes plunged into the rapist's belly. The human wolf gagged and died, scarlet bubbling between slack lips. She shuddered and grabbed her rescuer's arm.

"Be gone from here," he snapped. There was something hateful in his expression, but she didn't care. His pants were soaked in blood, his and the blood of the wolves. He limped badly from the wound at his ankle. His right leg wouldn't support his weight.

She saw the leader of the pack, her attackers' alpha male, raise the gun. Blue eyes widened. Her hero turned, raised the axes as he shifted to stand between her and the lead wolf. The warrior stumbled as he put weight on his bad leg in his haste to attack.

The gun fired twice.

Blood poured from the new hole in his left shoulder. His arm hung like a useless lump of meat at his side. The hole allowed the light of the subway to shine through the meat of one bicep. She had to fight not to be sick. Had to think clearly, had to suppress the shock that wanted to simply numb and blur the world into nothing. Had to time all of this just right. If she got it wrong, even a little, they would both die. She needed to hear footsteps. She knew they would come. The footsteps of the approaching enemy, but their assailant didn't know that.

She laid a hand on the man who stood beside her. He flinched at the contact and twitched away from her touch, but she knew he would act exactly the way he needed to in order to save them both. When she heard shoes clanging on concrete, on metal stairways, she screamed as loud as her tortured throat would allow, "Officer, Officer! Help us!" She tried to wave, as if she could see someone.

The gunman jerked and half turned to look in the direction she was waving. A silver axe flew through the air and embedded itself in the monster's skull. He fell to the ground, and she turned to the man who had thrown the axe with such deadly accuracy.

"We have to get out of here," she whispered. Clutching her purse in one hand, she grabbed his uninjured arm with the other and ducked beneath to take his weight, making it easier to lead him. He tripped and stumbled. She nearly fell with him. "Ow! Okay, okay…"

She sucked in a breath and tried to think. Her body was numbing itself, compartmentalizing the pain of her injuries, allowing her brain to numb her to what had happened so she could think. It was an old trick from her youth. It would cost her later—suppressing trauma reactions always did, she'd learned that in psychology—and only the blanket of shock allowed her to manage it at all.

But even with the trick, fire burned inside her and sticky blood cooled on her skin. Everything hurt, especially her right knee, her slashed and bleeding face, and the ripped places inside of her. She didn't want to think of what would happen when the shock and the mental walls she'd put up dissolved and the trauma came back. Last time she'd dealt with something like that, she'd passed out.

 _Heavenly Father, give me the strength,_ she begged silently. She pulled the pale man's arm and settled it more firmly over her shoulder, trying to more easily support some of his weight. He tensed, but allowed himself to lean on her a little. His pain was almost tangible.  _Help me save us both. Help me stay strong, stay focused. I can't do this without Thee. Help me, please._

A warmth stole through her chest, and she closed her eyes. Everything would be all right. Everything would work out the way God wanted it to. She could do this. She  _could_. And if she couldn't, well…she'd figure it out when she got that far.

The pale man weighed much less than she'd expected, but he stiffened as soon as she tried to get them both to their feet. Tightening her grip on his wrist, she pushed herself upright, supporting him as well as he staggered to his feet with a groan stifled behind clenched teeth.

"Okay…okay, come on. There has to be a safe place here somewhere. Yeah. Come on."

"How are you doing this?" He demanded gruffly from between clenched teeth. "A moment ago, you could barely move."

"It's a lot easier to push myself past suicidal limits if others are depending on me." As a wave of dizziness and horror tried to choke her, she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. The sharp stinging pain ripped her back to the blissfully almost-numb present. "And I had time to gather my strength and get a second surge of adrenaline. Self-producing caffeine shots are great. Come on, we need to hide out until they leave. Let's go."

"I do not want your help."

"Um…no offense, my lord," she muttered, remembering to whom she was fairly certain she spoke, "but I  _so_  don't care. Shut up and walk if you can. Come on, come on…" Her voice was breathy with fatigue, with pain. She didn't sound impatient, only exhausted. "We gotta go. Is there somewhere we can go?" She saw him open his mouth to speak and knew she needed to press her advantage, now, before he got enough energy to really make a good argument. So she hissed, "Look, I'm not gonna leave you here. If you know somewhere we can hide until they forget about us, I suggest you tell me so we can get there before more of them show up. You're in no shape to fight. There's steel and Teflon in those bullets—poisonous to your kind."

She was hazarding a guess. She'd seen the delicately pointed tip of one ear peeping through the strands of silvery blond hair and the fact that the sclera of this man's eyes was nearly burgundy, not white. It was one reason she didn't fear this man as much as she might have otherwise. If she was wrong, this would all be for nothing. He'd think she was mad as a hatter. But she could tell by the way he tried to flinch away from her that she'd been right on target.

"You—"

"I have the Sight. And I work with children on a daily basis. You pick up a few things. Now seriously—let's  _go!"_

She put the last bit of volume her voice would allow into that last word. He glared at her for what seemed like a thousand years before giving her an almost imperceptible nod. She tightened her grip on his wrist to ground herself, tensed her shoulders to more easily support his weight, and began to move.

They were silent, the better to hear their enemies. Footsteps stomped on concrete, and they moved faster. Pain lanced her body, stealing her breath away. She bit her lip to stifle her moans. He, her rescuer who moved like a jungle cat, was in worse shape than she could have imagined anyone surviving. She owed him. She  _had_ to help him.

"You are bleeding," the blond man beside her hissed. His teeth were still tightly clenched. She snorted.

"So are you. Stop talking. Begging my lord's pardon," she added as an afterthought.

"Why are you doing this?" He demanded. His voice dripped with venom, with fury. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Refused to answer. She needed what little breath she had. He pressed, "Answer me. And it is, 'Your Highness.'"

"Oh. My apologies, Your Highness," she said, and kept moving without answering. For a long time, there was no speech between them, save for the tersely muttered directions her rescuer bit out from between gritted teeth. Her vision was beginning to fade in and out, things becoming flickering and white and sparkling.

She blinked and bit her tongue to pull herself back from the brink of fainting. She had to do something, or she would fall at his feet. Her fingertips were cold and numb. Her legs were full of red hot spikes. She was gasping now, near the end of her strength, but she knew she couldn't afford to collapse. What if her companion needed her help? What if the icy walls she'd erected between herself and what had just happened suddenly collapsed as well? She'd break into a million pieces. She couldn't afford that. Not again, not yet. Not ever.

"What is your name?" The pale-skinned man demanded, though his voice was laced with pain. She glanced at him.

"Your Highness, why are you talking?"

"Because I no longer hear the sounds of pursuit. So tell me, human, what is your name?"

She sighed, and tried to keep the world from spinning out of control around her. Taking in a deep breath through her nose and out through her mouth to reduce some of the vicious pain threatening to crush her, she finally admitted, "It's Dylan, Your Highness."

"Dylan? I thought that was a man's name among…most people."

The rape-victim glanced up at him, shivering and still managing to sport an incredulous expression on her face. Was he seriously asking about whether she had a guy's name while she bled from vaginal tearing and he slowly bled to death from multiple gunshot wounds? Seriously?

Or was he trying to make small talk? Because that was actually sort of what it sounded like. But why? Why couldn't he just shut up and concentrate on not dying like a normal person? She shook her head slowly from side to side in exasperation.

"It's unisexual. Although my father  _did_  want boys," she found herself saying.

"I take it he had all daughters," her rescuer replied dryly.

"Until the last batch, yeah. My sisters' names are Petra, Pauline, and Mary, Simone and Gardenia, Victoria and Francesca. Triplets and three sets of twins. I have a twin brother, John; we're the third set. Since you don't like me, why are you asking?"

She wasn't cracking jokes now. She could tell by the revulsion in his golden eyes that he positively loathed her.

"The sound of silence irritates me," he replied, his voice wicked ice cold, like starlight in the subzero depths of space. She fought a shiver. "I would prefer even your irritating voice to the sound of my own thoughts at this moment. You have not the slightest idea what those… _animals_  were thinking."

"I'm sure I've some notion," she said with a sharpness she hadn't intended. But the unmitigated gall he must possess to claim—

"Do you know what the barrel of a human's gun would do to a woman's body? Or a glass bottle? A knife blade?" He hissed, his voice seething like the molten bronze of his sanguine gaze. "Do you know what sort of damage men do after they've exhausted their own lust? Because I do."

She bit her lip and shook her head as tears burned her eyes. She'd read in a book once about a group of men who had raped a woman until they were spent, and because their bodies could do no more, they had continued to ravage her body with the hilts of their swords. The woman had died slowly, agonizingly.

The idea turned Dylan's blood to ice. And she knew that the men who'd attacked her, bearing the inked mark of the Rojos, would have done much, much worse to her. Worse even than she'd experienced during her days in—

 _No. Don't go there. Not now. I can't break now. I can't break_  ever.  _No._

"You are more fortunate than you can possibly imagine, that I decided to save you."

"Regretting the fact that you did?" Dylan asked, only half-joking. He glanced at her, then away, and she knew the answer instantly.

She sighed, but didn't comment. If she was right, her rescuer had every reason to gripe about the fact that she'd "imposed" on him, as it were. Dylan knew many of the fae didn't like humans, or at least cared little about hurting or manipulating them for a moment's amusement. She even admitted that some mortals deserved the Fair Folk's hatred. How was this Elf to know that she was not one of those dark-hearted humans who relished the pain and torment of other beings? Many of the fey didn't believe such humans even existed anymore.

"If it makes you feel any better…I'm truly grateful," she replied softly. "I know in the end they would have killed me. Thank you, Your Highness."

Dylan felt the Elf stiffen even more. Start to pull away. In retaliation, petty though she knew it to be, she tightened her grip on his wrist, pulled a little. She wasn't going to let anything happen to this idiot just because he was trying his hardest to piss her off and make her leave him behind.

She had no doubts that that was exactly what he was trying to do. Well, she wouldn't have any of it. He needed help. She wasn't a monster, no matter what he thought; she wasn't going to just leave him to die. Besides, without the need to help him driving her…she'd likely collapse and let herself bleed out on the pavement.

"Where are we going?" She asked wearily after several tense moments.

"A safe place," he mumbled absently, glancing around. They needed to hurry. He smelled the tang of ozone, which meant a subway train was coming, though not for some miles yet. They had perhaps ten minutes.

But he also caught the irritating stench of humans. Male. Aroused, angry. On the prowl. Hunting for something…or someone. Also no more than ten or eleven minutes away, but moving quickly, quicker than Nuada and Dylan could in their current, injured state. Dylan, being human, was slower, weaker. His only chance of escape without further risk of injury would be to leave her. He contemplated the idea for a moment. After all, she was only a pathetic human. He owed no human anything but a swift, merciless death.

"How you holding up?" She asked breathlessly, and tripped over her own dragging feet. They both started to go down, but she caught them, steadied them. Her breath hissed through her teeth as she fought the waves of nausea and searing pain. "I am…so, so sorry, Highness. My fault. Gosh. Move, feet," she snapped down at the ground, as if ordering the appendages around would make them obey her. "Did I jar anything? Any fresh bleeding?"

"No," he replied slowly. "No."

A debt of honor was being incurred here, and it greatly displeased him. Infuriated him. He loathed humans, despised them for their spineless, heartless, gutless behavior. For everything they had done to the world as well as to so many of his loved ones. To himself. They had exacted their twisted pleasure and vengeance on him time and again in his many centuries. Humans were monsters.

Yet here was a mortal woman who had remained behind, severely injured and afraid, to make sure he survived the fight he had engaged in to save her. Even now, when it was obvious to an imbecile that she needed medical attention, she refused to leave him, because he was injured.

Either she was a simpleton, a madwoman, or not altogether human. Those were the only possible explanations.

He heard footsteps, closer this time. Smelled the wolf pack in men's clothing approaching them. Far enough away that they could not yet see or be seen, but close enough that they were nearly out of time. Gritting his teeth in anticipation of the pain, he made a decision and with a snake-quick strike, lifted Dylan into his arms and over his good shoulder in what the humans called a fireman's carry.

"What are you doing?" The utter terror in her voice enraged him. "Stop! You're in no condition…what are you doing?"

Her voice dropped to a whisper as he approached the gap between the concrete walkways and the subway rails. Even as they watched, a rat sizzled and fried as it touched the third rail coursing with electricity.

"Watch the middle bar," she squeaked.

She squeaked because her body was reminding her in painful ways that it currently didn't like her, but she had no choice but to ignore it. She felt muscles bunch, coil, and then her rescuer sprang, leaping so that when they landed, it was on the far side of the tracks, well clear of the electrified rail.

The impact of their landing sent rockets of pain shooting through Dylan's pelvis and face, and she bit her lip to stifle a scream. Fresh blood exploded from the countless knife-slices bisecting her ruined mouth.

Nuada did not ask her if she were all right. He knew she was not, and he did not care to hear her lie to him (or to whine) about her status. He did not ask if she were bleeding still. He could smell the copper fear stench of her blood, feel it dribbling down the arm that was pressed against the backs of her thighs by virtue of holding her clasped tightly over his shoulder. Feel it smeared across his shoulder and back from the cuts on her face. He shuddered in disgust.

"Are we almost there?" The human woman whispered. He turned his head until he could look at the slashing ruin of her face.

"Yes," he managed to say calmly. She was watching him with wide, fearful eyes like cobalt pools of ice shrouded in mist. As if he was the answer to all her prayers. Her salvation. It had been…centuries since anyone looked at him like that. The last person had been Nuala, as a child, when their mother…

Nuada's chest ached with the struggle to draw breath. His skull throbbed from loss of blood. The last embers of iron-fever would be rekindled by the poisonous metals in his body and the pain would only continue to get worse. His body, already weakened by poison and illness and exhausted from hours of training, wouldn't last much longer. But he could carry her as far as the entrance. That burst of effort had shaved three minutes at least off their journey. If he continued to be able to maintain this pace, then they would be safe in moments.

He heard a  _click_ , and turned slightly to look behind him. Dylan tried to focus on the concrete that rose above and away from them, but everything was blurred. Nuada saw the men, saw their grins, saw the gleam of the light upon the steel barrel of the gun, and spun as the weapon fired. A bullet, burning with pain and toxic lead, ripped into his side. His breath shot out of him, and he hit his knees on the ground. He tasted toxic metal, scented it, and realized a train was coming.

Dylan whispered, "No.  _No_. It isn't fair. Put me down and get out of here. Please, you have to—"

"You killed our friends,  _eśe_ ," the first thug, the one to the left of the gunman, called out. Dylan fell silent. Tears made her cheeks shine under the dirt and blood on her face. Burned in the slashing cuts. "All for the  _puta_. You're gonna die. No weapons now, man."

Bronze eyes met silvery blue. Both burned as they urged the other to abandon them and run. Nuada got to his feet. The mortal in his arms cursed under her breath, calling him ten kinds of idiot. The Elven warrior didn't care. He had engaged in a battle to save her life. Human or not, abandoning her now would be dishonorable and cowardly. He had made his decision. Like a true prince, he would abide by it.

He tried to sprint. He was as slow as a human now. The gun clicked. He picked up speed, or tried. Dizziness slammed him hard. He stumbled. The entrance to his sanctuary was less than sixty seconds away.

The gun fired, twice.

A bullet bit deep into his good arm. Dylan landed on the ground in a heap as his muscles lost the ability to hold her. She cried out when the ground hit her. Agony shot through her back, her legs, her pelvis. Her skull screamed at her.

Another bullet found the back of Nuada's right thigh. He stumbled and fell hard to the floor on hands and knees.

The moment he was on the ground, she was on her knees. She had a stone in one trembling hand.

 _Heavenly Father, please, don't let me miss,_  she prayed silently.

She threw it, hard. It hit the gunman's hand, and he dropped the gun. It went off, and he screamed as blood gushed from his foot. In his gyrations, he kicked the gun onto the tracks, which rumbled with the weight of the approaching train. Dylan whispered a prayer of gratitude even as she hauled her rescuer up.

"Tell me where," she commanded breathlessly. Her knees buckled. She quickly locked them and bit down on her tongue. The pain helped steady her a little. "We have to go. Tell me where!"

"Straight," he gasped. Pain made him dizzy. Blood-loss made him cold. He wanted to rest, just for a moment, but…but in rest lay death. "Fifteen feet."

They staggered forward. Dylan looked around wildly. Bright light washed over them, and the subway train shrieked at them. She gasped and cried, "Now what?"

Nuada touched the wall of concrete and gasped out, "Guardian, let us pass. Slay our enemies."

Dylan's vision twisted, doubled, and she knew somehow she was going to die. Blood or train, that's what she wondered. Would the train make her into a pancake? Or would she turn into a puddle of blood?

That was the question, wasn't it? The crimson liquid dripped onto the cement. Her stockings were soaked with it. Everything sparkled around her and her skull buzzed. The speeding train bore down on them, screaming that they were going to die. She tasted death on her tongue.

She blinked at the wall as a gaping darkness yawned before her. Her own eyes or the whispered words of her rescuer?

The faerie warrior lurched forward, dragging her with him, and she fell…through the wall. The subway train whizzed by them like a herd of carnivorous horses.

Nuada sagged against the wall. Safety. Blessed safety at last.

He turned to Dylan, who dropped to the floor in a graceless heap. She sank into oblivion as the world went black around her. Just before unconsciousness closed up her senses, she smelled the sweet scent of lilies and roses, and inexplicably thought,  _Grandma?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References Made in the Chapter:
> 
> \- "Every word is a part of a picture. Every sentence is (or can be) a picture. The reader uses their imagination to put those pictures together..." is an almost direct quote from the movie The Mighty, which is based on the book Freak the Mighty (I can't remember who it's by, but it's a pretty unique title so if you want to read it, it should be easy to find). It was one of the most interesting explanations of reading I'd ever heard.
> 
> \- "Trust the wolves, but do not tell them where you are going." This is a line from the short story "Instructions" by Neil Gaiman.
> 
> \- Iron poisoning. Originally that wasn't in here, but then one of my favorite reviewers made a comment that Nuada is a very good warrior, he's been through wars where there are no rules, he's had to fight dirty, and he can take out just about anyone. Her point was - how did Nuada end up so badly injured by a gang of street thugs? So I introduced three concepts: one, the exhaustion. If you've just gone a bazillion rounds with yourself over the course of 5-6 hours, you're gonna be tired, and slow, and not quite as sharp as you would be otherwise. The second was iron poisoning. Why would Nuada end up hurt so badly? Because he went into a fight, 1 against 9, while he was exhausted and still sick. Gives him a viable weakness here.
> 
> Now, what is iron sickness? I've read a lot of faerie books, and in almost all (if not all), iron is toxic to the fae. Even someone like Nuada, who's strong and tough, would be affected if he was in the city long enough (this is also my theory for why he looks so sick in the auction house scene; it's the only scene where he looks almost... dead). As he lives underground and such, obviously there are ways to circumvent the iron sickness, so why it didn't work this time is up to you. But that's just a little back story on that. Toodles!
> 
> \- The third concept is the dipsa assassination attempt. The dipsa serpent is a snake from the medieval bestiary (I assume that means it's not real) that's so small it's really easy to step on, and so poisonous that by the time you've realized it's bitten you, you're a second away from dying anyway. Here, I've altered it a bit so it's a type of faerie.
> 
> \- The thing about the stones was something I actually did in middle school. I carried rocks in a fanny pack around my waist in case I ever needed a weapon, because I was afraid of guns and was too young according to my parents to own a knife of any kind.
> 
> \- Petra, Pauline, and Mary - Peter, Paul, and Mary was a musical group from the 60s (maybe the 70s).
> 
> \- Victoria and Francesca; look at the male versions of those names. Victor and Frank. Victor Frankenstein.
> 
> \- Simone and Gardenia. Simon and Gar. Simon and Garfunkel. I love their music.
> 
> \- "The Sound of Silence" is a song by Simon and Garfunkel. My own brother never really liked it. It is in the Dustin Hoffman film, the Graduate.
> 
> \- The thing about the gun being used to rape a woman was from an episode of CSI: Vegas I saw once.
> 
> \- The thing about the bottle being used to rape a woman was from an episode of Criminal Minds I saw once.
> 
> \- The thing about the knife being used to rape a woman was from a Labyrinth/Legend fanfic I read once. I don't think it's on here anymore, and I certainly don't remember who wrote it or even what it's called, but I remember that much.
> 
> \- The thing about the swords being used to rape a woman that Dylan remembers (that exact story) was from a book I read about Robin Hood called Lady of the Forest. I liked the book a lot, but not that part (too sad). Will Scarlet's wife was the victim of rape by Norman soldiers as related in the text of this chapter. It was really, really sad.
> 
> \- "Heavenly Father, please don't let me miss" is inspired by the movie IT, based on the novel by Stephen King. In IT, the character Beverly prays, "God, please don't let me miss," right before firing her silver slingshot bullet at the monster. I changed it to "Heavenly Father," because the character Dylan is LDS (Mormon).
> 
> \- Dylan is named after the singer/songwriter, Bob Dylan. She has a "more feminine" middle name.


	2. Waking the Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wounded by poisonous human metals, Nuada needs immediate medical attention. Meanwhile, John Myers senses his twin sister's danger and pain...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains instances of PTSD flare-ups, mentions of torture, and depictions of blood and gore in a medical setting.

**2\. Waking the Prince**

**that is**

**A Very, Very Short Tale of Much Blood, Some Passive Magic, Someone Like Scheherazade, and a Debt of Honor**

.

.

Nuada ignored the screams. The golem he had set as the protector of this sanctuary had waited for the train before crossing the tracks and dealing with his enemies. Now he heard the wet sounds of tearing flesh, the cries of terror, and found no pleasure or pain in them. The Elf simply ignored them. His wounds burned as iron contamination spread like a disease through the flesh, coloring it the sickly blue of a drowned corpse. Exhaustion beat at him. His muscles ached from the human metals and from the sickness still ravaging his body. A wave of dizziness washed through him, and he groaned. When it passed, he glanced at the mortal sprawled upon the ground by the entrance.

Never before had he brought a human to one of his sanctuaries. He had never had a reason to. But now, because of his thrice-cursed honor, he was forced to keep this mortal from dying because she had risked her life more than once to save him. No human had ever done anything for him, much less something like that. He owed her a terrible debt.

_May all the gods beyond the stars curse her._

Nuada looked around the Spartan room. There was a stone fireplace, above which hung a small painting of his sister, one of only two luxuries in the place. His eyes took in the table with two chairs, and several cabinets and trunks which held clothing, weapons, medical supplies, and non-perishable food items. The bed, with a thin mattress and one pillow, stood near one of those trunks. The blanket, a quilt from his old bedroom at the summer palace of Renvyle, was his second luxury. When a wave of melancholy threatened to drown him at the thought of the quilt and his childhood palace suite, he ruthlessly dismissed it. There were two doors on either side of the fireplace, one that led to a bathing room, and one to a privy. The floor of the main chamber was of cold, clean-swept stone. So he could have access to water, there was a tiny well in a corner, out of the way but within comfortable reach. A young crinaeae, with very little power but a unique and quirky talent, kept the water clean, cold, and sweet.

In the center of the room was a woven mat. It was this that was his aim. He fought another wave of dizziness as he dragged the human towards the mat. With every movement, blood flowed thick and heavy from his wounds. His heart labored to pump in his chest. Sheer determination fueled by rage and self-loathing (A  _human!_  A human saved his life!  _Pah!_ ) gave him the strength to do this. Panting with exertion and pain, he thought frantically about how he could tend her wounds when his own were so severe. After all, if he passed out from loss of blood, they would both die. On the other hand, he could not treat his own wounds by himself.

The human solved his problem for him by waking up as he set her down upon the mat. She slowly opened bleary eyes, then blinked as shock and fear spread across her bleeding face. A thin, weak cry of terror ripped out of her mouth as she scrambled away from him in a crab-scuttle until she had half-crawled atop his bed. Wonderful. Now the stench of humanity and iron-laced blood would saturate all of his bedding. Fantastic.

"For Danu's sake, human, I mean you no harm. Be still."

Under more normal circumstances, Dylan would've made some sharp retort at the biting censure in his voice, but even if she'd felt up to it, just then her arms – which had been holding her up - buckled beneath her, and she slid to the floor. She immediately curled in on herself like a snail, holding tight to herself. Nuada looked her over with keen scrutiny, and the human woman shuddered. Her bruised, bloody, and battered face was positively bloodless. Frightened blue eyes were set within deep, dark circles in her face. Nuada could tell by the bruising that her left cheekbone was cracked. The brunette didn't seem to notice that, nor the blood seeping from the dozens upon dozens of cuts and slashes across her face.

Dylan's gaze found him. Panic stole through her eyes. He could hear the thunder of her heart in her breast.

 _Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn..._  The words came unbidden to her mind. She remembered the story, had read it so many times she had it memorized. And what better time to use those guidelines than now? Dylan felt like she'd walked into a fairy tale... or a faerie tale. Preternatural warriors, magical sanctuaries, war axes like shooting stars... yeah. A fairy story. Complete with blood and slaughter. Closing her eyes against the sight of that white-skinned warrior with the bleeding wounds, she remembered,  _Favors will be returned, debts be repaid._

On the trail of that thought came another, different, one of her own instead of something read once in a book:  _he won't hurt me unless I provoke him._  With that realization, the paralyzing fear seemed to ease.

A little.

"Where are we? Are we dead?" She asked softly. It never occurred to her to ask who he was. Once she'd made it away from the overpowering male presence of him and put some distance between them, the memories had surfaced fairly quickly. He was an Elf, one of the Kindly Ones. One of  _them_.

One trembling hand wiped at a trickle of blood from a cut right beneath her eye. Remarkably, Dylan felt better. She had complete feeling back in her fingers and toes, and the throbbing, red-hot pain from her pubic bone and pelvis were gone, replaced by a dull ache. The ragged slashes across her face no longer screamed at her. Her vision wasn't sparkling like white stars against grayness, and the ability to focus at least a little had returned. The floaty sensations from blood-loss felt more like she'd had a few bad cuts that required stitches rather than being gang-raped by a pack of human predators. Remarkably, the battered woman had enough attention span left after the pain to really want a shower.

"Are we dead?" Dylan repeated, then added, "Um, Your Highness."

The air was icy against her skin, which looked gray, even to her own eyes. She was trying not to give anything away to the man in front of her, but her mind raced, and she couldn't hide the panic in her eyes. Body trembling visibly with the urge to get up and run, somehow she knew a mere mortal in her condition couldn't move fast enough to outrun the unearthly man in front of her, even in the bloody state he was in.

But she  _had_  to run. She had to get up and run, but her legs shook uncontrollably. Where were they? The scent of roses and lilies clung to the stones around her, but the stench of blood burned her nostrils and tried to swamp the perfume of flowers. Heart pounding, she bit her tongue to hold herself still. If she bolted, she knew instinctively he would be on her in seconds, and then... and then he... he would... just like the others, just like the wolves, and just like in the basement, he would...

 _Run,_ her brain screamed.  _Run, run, runrunrun!_

 _Can't,_ the other part of her moaned.  _Can't, hurts too much, can't_ _.._ _._

"No," he grunted. He didn't add, "Not yet," but she heard the implied threat under his words.

Dylan swallowed hard. Her brain was working overtime, now that they were no longer being chased, her mind considering some rather sinister possibilities. What if... what if this person had only tried to help her so that he could hurt her himself? It was a viable concern. How many of the Bright Ones had told her that humans gave especially good sport? Even as she thought it, she stuck her tongue between her teeth and bit down again, trying to calm her suddenly racing heart. Salt-blood flooded her mouth and pain flooded her face like a riptide, dragging at her fear. Pain had always been an anchor for her, and she used it now, even though she  _knew_  eventually that would come back to bite her. She'd worry about that later.

 _Focus on the pain,_ she told herself, struggling for calm.  _Taste the blood. Feel the sting. Focus on that. Relax. Just a little-_

_RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN-_

_Relax!_  She screamed at herself.  _I can't even hear myself think when I'm having a freak out._  Drawing a shuddering breath, her side flared with pain. That helped her to focus as well. Carefully, Dylan examined the idea that this tall, muscular, blond, bullet-riddled man had intervened on her behalf just so he, too, could have his turn with her. Would he do that?  _Could_  he do it? Or would he do something else to her? Something worse?

 _He's too badly hurt,_  the logical part of her mind murmured, while the screaming, terrified part of her mind kept reminding her of all the teens she knew who'd been suckered by a man feigning injury; kept reminding herself of  _Strands of Starlight_ , where a girl was raped by a man she healed after a bear had severed his arm. All these things that told her she was being stupid, being too trusting.

But she was a doctor. It was her duty to ease pain, heal hurts. Never mind that she was supposed to do that for people's minds, for their souls. She knew enough about the human body that she could make a passable attempt at healing it here. The Hippocratic Oath and all that.

 _Screw the Oath,_  she shrieked at herself as the man in front of her shifted position. She pulled her body back as far as she could. Pain smashed down on her like a tidal wave.  _Forget about the Oath! He's going to rape me!_

 _Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn.c_  Her brain seemed to trip over the words as they resurged into her mind.  _Favors will be returned, debts be repaid._

_Heavenly Father, what do I do? I'm freaking out, help me. I need help, I need a hospital, and so does he, and I don't know if it's safe to be around him. Tell me what to do, please..._

In church, she'd often been told to wait ten or fifteen minutes for an answer to prayers. Generally, that was the minimum time between the end of a prayer and the receipt of an answer. But this time, the answer was practically immediate, and so strong that she felt it in her teeth:

_Help him, or you will both die._

Her heart skipped a beat. Slammed against her sternum. Hammered in her chest. Dylan swallowed several times, trying not to gasp for air, feeling as if she'd just been sucker-punched. She had to help him. She could feel it in her bones, but... but going near him made her want to cry. To scream. To break down and never get back up again. What if he hurt her?

 _Now,_ the feeling insisted, pushing at her.  _Already, he fades. You must begin now._

_Fades?_

She noticed he was sitting on the floor, his chin on his chest, his face hidden behind the curtain of his hair. His pale skin was tinged with a sickly blue undertone, slicked with sweat, and he shuddered continually. At the sight of him, Dylan started in surprise. The blond man looked half-dead already. Shoving her long hair out of her face, she leaned in and peered at him, ignoring the way her skin prickled and her panic screamed. Her eyes found the holes that bled sluggishly. Adrenaline surged through her veins at the sight. He was still hurt, way worse than she was! How could she not have remembered?

"Whoa! Lie down!" She ordered. He looked questioningly at her, and opened his mouth to speak. "Do it!" Dylan yelped, voice laced with panic.  _Don't argue_ , she begged silently, motioning for him to make himself horizontal.  _Please, just do what I say before I have hysterics_. "We have to get those bullets out right away! Or the human metals will infect your blood." What was the old saying about fighting the Other Kin with metals?  _Holy silver, burning iron, cold lead, blessed electrum._  Iron and lead could kill a faerie creature if they managed to infect the blood. And didn't gunpowder have salt in it?

"I suppose you know how," he replied sarcastically. "Because as you can see, there are no others here."

Dylan panted shallowly as panic threatened to overwhelm her, trying to fight it back. She couldn't afford to be intimidated or frightened by her rescuer and his harsh words. Even as she was thinking this, she made the abrupt mental switch she'd learned at the institutions, going from panic-stricken fear and hurt to deep, deep rage. Glaring at her rescuer with something akin to venom, despite the fear coiling like worms in her belly, she crawled to her purse lying several feet away and dragged it back. She glanced at him. Blue lines were bright against his pursed lips. Her rescuer was in pain. Both irritated and admiring of his stalwart stoicism, she unzipped the thing which looked more like a medium-sized leather messenger bag than a purse and dumped its contents on the floor.

The mortal woman was muttering something under her breath. It sounded to Nuada like,  _"If it cries to you that it hurts, if you can, ease its pain."_

Rifling through the contents of her bag, the blue-eyed mortal pulled out a lighter, scissors, a pair of long tweezers, hand sanitizer, and a plastic spool of white sewing thread with an old-fashioned, four-inch tapestry needle stuck through the top. She found these items amongst so many other things that Nuada was surprised they all fit inside the bag. The sheer number of items made his head spin.

"Interesting collection." His sarcasm could've cut through bone. Something dark pulsed through Dylan as she shivered and thought desperately,  _Don't get afraid. Get angry._

"Well, Your Highness, you never know what might come in handy," she wheezed. Her head suddenly began to throb, but she ignored it, focusing on the metal tweezers as she flicked open the lighter and called forth the flame after sanitizing her hands. Holding the tips over the dancing tongue of fire, her eyes watched the metal begin to glow as it heat up. "This will hurt."

"You are actually going to attempt this," he gasped. His vision was starting to phase in and out. He gritted his teeth against the poison-induced nausea. "Are you a... healer?"

"Sort of," she whispered, and bade him lie down. Too exhausted to argue, Nuada tried to obey, and ended up collapsing upon his back, seemingly unconscious. She'd been right in thinking he was worse off than she. Right in guessing what the metal would do to him. The iron from the blade and the lead from the bullets, gestalted by the iron-sickness and the last traces of dipsa venom in his system, were already beginning to poison him. The pale-skinned man was as weak as a kitten now. Luckily, he was also out cold.

Dylan's fear began to recede just a little more, and she leaned over him. Shivered, knowing she was on the edges of control. Only the numbness of shock and the ember of warmth in her chest kept her from shattering completely. She tried to ignore the burning that began in her knee and raged through her body all the way to her bruised, lacerated, and probably cracked cheek. Feeling nearly done in, the brunette forced her hands to remain as steady as possible while she carefully pushed the now sterile tweezers into the wound at his belly.

The human woman had been wrong about one thing – Nuada was not unconscious. He was  _barely_ conscious. He did not even have the strength to open his eyes. He could only lay there, trying to conserve his strength. Then the human moved, began working on his injuries. Fire ripped through him, and the Elf found himself paralyzed by iron. The metal in the instrument scorched his skin, but she unerringly found the bullet lodged in his body and plucked it out. Fresh blood flowed, and Nuada sank into blissful oblivion.

"Gotcha," she hissed. "Tricky little sucker."

She grabbed needle and thread and hastily stitched up the wound.

"Four years of med school really paid off," she muttered to herself as she repeated the performance on both of his arms. Only two bullets left. She'd even removed the fragments of concrete and ceramic that had ricocheted off the walls.

She was grateful that he was unconscious. What pain would he probably be suffering if he'd been awake? His eyes had gleamed as if with a fever. Maybe he was sick. Maybe the metal was poisoning him worse than she knew. She only knew stories, nothing solid. What did she really know about doctoring an Elf? That was one faerie she'd  _never_  encountered in this sort of situation before. And Dylan wholeheartedly believed that that was exactly what this pale, blond man was. His grace, his power, the whiteness of his skin and the oddly familiar, deep gold of his eyes – all of it was so blatantly fey, blatantly Elven.

Dylan could tell up-close that her patient wore no makeup, no contact lenses. This creature was something right out of a storybook, something right out of her greatest and oldest dreams. She'd seen his kind before. Was known to his kind. And there was something so oddly familiar about him.

Dylan had suffered eleven years in nut house lock-up because she believed in people like him. Claimed to have seen them. Had dedicated her life to helping them survive in a world of concrete, steel, and poisons. And now she had the chance to help one of the Shining Ones again.

Any whisper of excitement, however, was dull and tasteless when compared to the overwhelming fear of the large man on the ground in front of her knees. Every time he so much as twitched, her heart jumped into her throat, and she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming. The impromptu doctor had tried reciting poetry in her head, something to focus her conscious mind on to reduce her fear, but Dylan had quickly realized that in order for the Elf to survive this surgery, she had to pay total attention to him.

 _How am I going to turn him over?_ She thought suddenly.  _How am I supposed to roll him over? I have to get him on his stomach so I can deal with those other wounds. I don't think I can turn him, not as weak as I am._

He solved her problem easily – he woke up.

Bronze eyes rimmed with crimson snapped open. She would've screamed, but the only sound that managed to escape her mouth was a breathless squeak of fear. She jerked away from him.

Black lips pulled back in a snarl. Her eyes went wide. A pale hand shot out, wrapped around her throat, and began to squeeze.

**.**

His cell phone rang, making him jump a mile high. He glanced at it and saw it was his uncle calling. He flipped the cell open and said, "Hey, Uncle Thad."

"John, Dylan's in some kind of trouble."

Well, that would explain the nervous tension. For the last few hours, he'd been pacing back and forth in his office, ice cold and unable to get warm, with a strange, restless tension building in his joints and a wicked headache brewing at the base of his skull. And now his uncle had called to tell him that his older twin sister was in some kind of trouble.

"What's up, Uncle Thad?"

"I was expecting her hours ago to give her her birthday present, thought maybe she'd forgotten about me. But after a few hours, I fell asleep and had one of my dreams. There was a pack of wolves chasing a little girl in a red dress, and something else, a huge white lion prowling after the wolves. I don't know what that means, but I'm worried about Dylan. John, you're in New York. Can you find her?"

"Uncle Thaddeus, I'm on the job." Technically. They'd stuck him outside on security detail, pushing the curious civilians past when they tried to stop and gawk at the federal agents swarming around the skyscraper where witnesses claimed to have seen aliens.

"She could be in danger, John!"

John Myers sighed, and checked his watch. It was three in the morning. He didn't feel like scouring the New York subway system looking for his sister just because his uncle had a bad feeling after waking up from a weird nightmare. But... there was the restlessness. The itchiness beneath the skin, and the odd headache, that meant he ought to be at least a little concerned about Dylan.

"John, please-"

"Okay. I'll look as soon as I get off shift. And I'll call you when I find her."

"Hurry, Johnny. I don't know what's wrong, but she's going to be in the middle of something big if you don't find her soon."

"Okay," he said. "Okay. Don't worry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References Made in the Chapter
> 
> \- A crinaeae is a Greek water nymph specifically associated with wells and fountains.
> 
> \- Danu is a goddess in Irish mythology. The name "Tuatha de Danaan," which are the Sidhe of Irish mythology, also translates as "People of the Goddess Danu." So it would make sense for Nuada to say "Danu" instead of, say, "God."
> 
> \- "Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turnc Favors will be returned, debts be repaid." These are two lines (set at different intervals) in the story "Instructions" by Neil Gaiman. The same goes for "If it cries to you that it hurts, if you can ease its pain."
> 
> \- "A Sound Like Angels Singing" is the name of a retelling of "the Pied Piper of Hamelin" by Leonard Rysdyk. But the title has always seemed to me a brilliant auditory descriptor.
> 
> \- "Don't get afraid; get angry" is a line from the Hogfather, though I think it's only in the film and not in the book by Terry Pratchett; it's a piece of advice offered by Susan Sto-Helit, a governess to two rather unusual children.
> 
> \- Scheherazade is the main character of 1001 Arabian Nights and the one telling the stories.
> 
> \- The white lion imagery is inspired by the fairy tale "The Singing, Springing Lark," which is number 88 in the collected stories of the Brothers Grimm. Although the lion is not said specifically to be white, he is white in the episode of Jim Henson's The Storyteller entitled "The White Lion," based on this and similar stories. I use the white lion image instead of the white cat, as Nuada reminds Dylan of Puss in Boots in chapter one.


	3. First Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both badly wounded and wary of treachery from the other, Dylan and Nuada have to decide how they're going to proceed with each other...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains blood and gore in a medical setting. It also contains references to mental illness, surgical practices, and torture.

**First Night**

**that is**

**A Short Tale of Pain, Terror, Healing, and Insight**

.

.

Red-washed molten bronze eyes snapped open. Dylan would've screamed, but the only sound that managed to escape her mouth was a breathless squeak of fear. She jerked away from him. Black lips pulled back in a snarl. Her eyes went wide. A pale hand shot out, wrapped around her throat, and began to squeeze.

The air exploded from her in a wheezing choking sort of gurgle. Desperately trying to suck in air, she gasped, but nothing would come. Her heart slammed against her ribs. Breathlessly, she managed to choke out, "Wait... wait. I'm trying to help you. Remember?"

"You are human," he snarled. His voice wavered. She could see exhaustion and fever clouding his eyes. See the pain in him. "Why would... would... you help me?"

She could only make a gurgling sound in her throat as his fingers bit into her neck. Nuada watched the human through somewhat blurry eyes as her mouth gawped like a fish, as her hands scrabbled weakly at his own wrapped around the slender mortal throat. Her lips slowly began to turn blue.

"Answer me," he demanded. She made a choked noise, and the Elf relaxed his grip by a fraction, to allow her to speak.

"I helped... you escape... remember? I'm not the enemy," the human wheezed.

"Why help me?" Nuada growled, and tried to shake her. It did not work, but she closed her eyes as tears rolled down her cheeks. Sharp Elven ears could hear the pounding of her empty black heart. The blond fey could practically taste her nauseating fear. "Tell me!" He growled, and she flinched. Filthy human coward.

"You saved me from the wolves," Dylan gasped. Opened her mouth to say more, snapped it shut.

_"And?"_

"It's... it's the decent... thing to do... please... please let go..."

The Elf prince suddenly released her as dizziness washed over him and the strength left his limbs. A strange burning was spreading across the back of his thigh and through his right side. Nausea rose up sharp and swift in his belly - a reminder of the poison and iron-sickness in his body.

The terrified human scuttled backwards like lightning, gasping for breath as she huddled as far away from him as possible. Her eyes were glassy with terror. Even with his vision blurred and her hands cradling her throat, he could see the brilliant scarlet marks his grip had left against her skin. He had not meant to do quite so much damage. Illness and pain had stolen a measure of his control.

"Very well," he muttered, looking away from the blood-red fingerprints at her throat. "See to my wounds, then."

A soft keening whimper came to him from the corner in which she cowered, but that was all. She did not move, or speak, but only stared at him, eyes wide, unblinking, panting with fear. He loathed the stench of woman's fear. Had loathed it ever since... The Elf tried to gentle his tone.

"I thought you were my enemy," he said by way of explanation. It galled him to have to explain to a disgusting human, but it was the only way. He could feel the blood seeping from his body with every beat of his heart. Ignoring the vile taste the words left in his mouth, he added, "I mean you no harm, human, if you mean none to me." Not quite a lie. Not quite the truth. "Now continue with what you were doing."

Trembling, Dylan shook her head, still whimpering.

"You were... quite... keen on aiding me a few moments ago," he replied to her silent negation. He tried to keep his voice calm. Frightening the wretched girl further would not aid him in any way.

 _If it cries to you that it hurts, if you can, ease its pain_ , a voice in Dylan's mind whispered, a breath of memory. She could only blink once, the lone reaction to her brain's promptings, and continue to struggle to breathe. The brunette shuddered, feeling like a wild animal caught in a trap. Her body refused to stop shaking, and her teeth chattered as if she were cold. Doubtless, if she'd attempted to speak, she'd have bitten her tongue.

"Can you not speak, human?" Nuada was losing patience now. His voice, usually cold as arctic winds, took on a searing bite that lashed his unwilling companion to her bones. Body aching, wounds burning, feverish, muscles cramping mercilessly, head pounding, and limbs weak, he snarled at her, " _Speak!_ "

_Ease its pain... holy crap. Someone, help me... someone. Anyone._ _Heavenly Father..._

Warmth spread through her, easing some of the mindless animal panic, pushing back memories of other hands wrapped around her throat. Only when she was a fraction calmer did she reply. "You just tried to strangle me," Dylan reminded him in a quivering voice. At least she hadn't stuttered.

"Ah. It speaks." The ice-cold voice was laced with venomous sarcasm.

One trembling hand swiped at the tears on Dylan's face, while the other gently explored the flesh of her throat, which was already beginning to swell. She had to get control, had to pull herself together. Biting her lip, she acknowledged that she couldn't afford to lose it here. Not right now. Not  _ever_ , darn it. She would never break again. Not after last time. There was too much at stake in her life. Struggling for calm, blue eyes fought to meet a glacial bronze gaze as she drew in a ragged breath and said, "You can't move anymore."

" _What?_ " That one word was suffused with such hatred.

"Not like that," she whispered, voice trying to fail. Swallowing, she went on, "One more move like that, and I'm outta here, okay?"

"Cowardly human wretch."

"Look, Your Highness, you scare me to death, okay? That doesn't make me a coward, that just proves I know you could kill me with your pinkie toe if you wanted to." She was babbling, but somehow, she couldn't force herself to stop. It was either babble or start shrieking hysterically. "And I don't want to die trying to help someone who's just going to kill me for no reason other than I don't have pointy ears, green skin, or butterfly wings. Sorry. I'm trying to help you. But you can't go choking the life out of me and dismembering my dead carcass just because I poke you where it hurts. Now, promise me you won't do stuff like that anymore, okay?"

"I will make no promise."

Dylan almost screamed in frustration, but clamped it back behind her teeth. She couldn't force herself to go near him while he looked at her with such glittering menace. What if he did something awful to her? What if he tried to rape her? Rape wasn't always about control. Sometimes, it was merely about breaking someone in the worst way possible because you hated them more than anything else in the world. That was how the Elf was looking at her now. Even as she realized this, a minute trembling began in her body, and she shivered again.

"Please?" She whispered desperately, staring at him with fearful eyes. "I... I can't... Your Highness,  _please?_ "

"Very well!" Nuada tried to shout, but it came out as more of a hoarse croak. The mortal cringed and whimpered. Nuada's head felt thick and throbbed mercilessly. "I vow that I shall not attack you so long as you are attempting to heal the damage done to my body. I will offer no harm to your person while you do this. Satisfied?"

"Swear it on the Darkness That Eats All Things," she commanded. The oath of an Elf was enough for her... under normal circumstances. Most fae couldn't lie, unless they were royal. But these were not normal circumstances.

"I swear on the Darkness That Eats All Things, that I shall not attack you so long as you are attempting to heal the damage done to my body. I will offer no harm to your person while you do this. Now are you satisfied, human?"

Yeah. Yeah, she could be satisfied with that. She hadn't been sure that the Darkness was actually a real thing, since so many things were distorted in myth, but Dylan knew what it was supposed to be, and  _no_  fey creature would swear by it and lie. Never, ever, in a million years, for to swear such an oath and be lying about it was to condemn yourself to death. A really bloody, horrible death being consumed by eternal and everlasting, living darkness.

The thought terrified her. She closed her eyes, and prayed silently,  _Heavenly Father, I don't think I can do this. I'm freaking out here. Help me. Just... anything. Anything you can give me would be good. Help me be calm. Help me be strong. Please. I can't do this on my own._

 _Where you see only a single set of footprints,_ a voice whispered in her mind,  _it is then that I carried you._

_I will carry you..._

Dylan swallowed a half-sob as a strange, sweet pain hit her chest. For a moment, she allowed herself to feel comforted, almost safe. Then, turning back to the supernatural warrior that had saved her life, the doctor's professionalism settled over her like a well-worn, favorite coat or child's security blanket.

"Um... hey," she murmured, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of one wrist, attempting to avoid getting blood in her eyes. It sort of worked. Instead, it smeared across her eyebrows and down one cheek. Darn it, she was tired, but she  _had_  to do this. He needed help. If he died... she couldn't let him die. So many of them had already died...

_If it cries to you that it hurts, if you can, ease its pain..._

He was ignoring her now. Slowly, she crawled back to his side. "Hey." Dylan touched his shoulder lightly to bring his attention to her. His copper eyes slashed to her face, and she jumped, trembling anew. "Your Highness, I-I need you to roll over, really slow. I gotta get the bullet in your thi-"

"It went through," he mumbled, and grabbed her hand, brought her fingertips to the bloody, ragged hole a few inches above his knee. He hissed when her fingers made contact. She gasped and jerked her hand away, shaking. "It will heal," he added, and sat up slowly. She swallowed hard when his eyes fell on her again. "You are injured."

"Just... let me stitch you up."  _Please,_  she added silently.  _You're freaking me out._  "I'm worried about you."  _When you're not, you know, trying to strangle me or tear gaping, bloody chunks out of my body with your eyes._

_He's going to rape me, he's going to rape me, I can't, not again, he's going to rape me, there's no one to help, no will come, I-_

"You... are worried for me?" He repeated woodenly, snapping her attention back to him. He blinked, confused. Growled, "Why?"

"You have a bunch of gaping holes and some bullets in you, not to mention a stab wound and a slashed ankle - possibly a nicked Achilles tendon - that are both still bleeding, and you want to know why I'm worried? Look, Highness, I can't wait for you to pass out from blood-loss before I treat you because I don't know how long I can stay conscious, and you might forget your promise and try to kill me again, so please just let me do this and I'm babbling again. Ignore the babbling and do what I say, okay? Please? Please?"

He stared at her for a long moment, puzzled by the earnestness in her mutilated face, which conflicted with the fear in her eyes. Then the Elf prince had to take a moment to process her long, rapid stream of words and make sure he actually understood what she wanted before he carefully rolled over onto his stomach, stifling the groan of pain that wanted to escape from behind his clenched teeth. She heated the tweezers over her lighter again, wishing she had the means or even the strength to do this properly. When the metal was starting to singe her fingers, she sucked in a breath between clenched teeth and plunged the instrument into the wound, where she saw the gleam of the bullet. He grunted in pain, and she felt tears pricking her eyes.

She hated this. She  _hated_ it.

Dylan got the bullet out of his arm, as well as the one in his side. She had to fight not to be ill. This only worked because she didn't have enough energy to vomit. It didn't help that she also pulled a sliver of bone out of the wound, too. Apparently the bullet had chipped a rib.

"Okay... um... got it!" She cried, and dropped that bullet beside the others lying in a small splash of residual blood on the floor. "Okay, lemme just stitch you up. Hang on." Reheating the needle, she bit her tongue as the silvery needle bit into his flesh and went through. When the sight of the open wound and the threaded needle grew blurry, she would pause for a moment, blinking to clear her vision. Her head was nearly nodding over her work, and everything burned and ached, but luckily she never jabbed him, only herself, jolting herself back to full wakefulness every time. She had to sew up all three holes in the back, as well as the stab wound.

"How are we doing, Your Highness?" Dylan murmured softly as she wiped some of the blood from his skin.

Nuada turned his head to regard the mortal woman over his shoulder. He had been sliced, stabbed, and shot. Iron and lead oozed added toxicity into his blood with every beat of his heart. Instead of being taken to an Elven healer like his sister undoubtedly had been, he had to make do with this stupid, inane human who babbled like a half-wit and resorted to primitive surgery to heal wounds inflicted on her behalf. And she wanted to know how he was doing? While she stabbed, poked, and prodded him with metal implements and burned his wounds with fire?

"Are you mad?" He demanded. And what was this "we" business?

"I gotta get your ankle," the mortal whispered, voice gentle, ignoring his question of her sanity. Her hands were trembling. She didn't know how she was going to do this when she was on the edge of exhaustion, when only dreamy shock kept her from mad hysterics, but it needed to be done, and it was going to hurt him more than anything else had so far. The idea made her shake. She didn't want to hurt him. Dylan hated hurting people.

What if he hurt  _her?_

 _Oh God, I can't... oh God, help me, please, I can't, oh God, oh God, I_  can't...

_Footprints in the sand..._

"I would rather reserve my strength at the present moment, so if you would be so obliging as to move towards my feet..." She could have seen his sarcasm if she'd been blind. Her hands began to shake even worse.

Dylan obligingly crawled to his foot and lifted it carefully, ignoring the muttering noises her patient was making under his breath, though she heard the words "mad" and "lunatic" a couple times. His foot jerked out of her hold when she touched near the wound. The Elf clenched his fists and sucked air through his teeth with a hiss, forcing his limb to stillness. Dylan bit her lip as she lifted his foot and positioned it between her legs, her bruised thighs tensing to hold the foot in place as she carefully pulled back the skin on either side of the slash wound to reveal the tendon. His toes curled and clenched tightly, and she knew she was hurting him. When her searching gaze saw that the tendon was not severed, or even scratched, she gave a shuddering sigh of relief. For a moment, she forgot her mind-numbing terror as the full implications of the wound set in her brain. Their situation could have been so much worse, but his ankle was fine, which meant nothing here wasn't fixable by primitive field medicine.

 _Thank You, Heavenly Father, thank You,_ she breathed silently in prayer, head bowed, before she hastily checked the muscles for any serious damage and then began to stitch the wound closed. As she worked, she told him, more to keep herself calm than to inform him of anything, "I was scared that they'd damaged your Achilles tendon. I wouldn't have known how to repair that kind of damage," she added. "Not with what I have on me. But they didn't. It's just the position of the wound that's making it hard to walk."

"That is well, then," her patient said faintly. He sounded exhausted. The fear began to melt away again, just a little.

Finally, she was finished stitching. She cut the thread, shoved her tools aside, and flopped down on the floor as far away from him as her tired body could manage, sighing. Her entire body ached. Dylan only wanted to lie down and sleep for a year, or maybe forever. But more than that, she wanted a shower. How she was going to manage that in a mystical hideaway beneath the subway, she had no idea. How she was even going to get up to move, she didn't know either.

Dylan noticed the Elf looking at her scrutinizingly. She would've flushed, but didn't think she could, what with the blood-loss she'd suffered. Her head and face hurt, and her heart began to pound. "What?"

"You are injured," he reminded her as he slowly sat up. Did the human not feel her own pain? Did she not feel her body crying out to her for peace, for numbness? "The wounds on your face need to be tended and-"

"I'm fine, Sire," she muttered, looking away.  _Don't remind him of weakness_ , she moaned to herself.  _Fake being fine. Lie. Do something! Don't give him a reason to attack!_  "You needed more help than I do."

"You are still bleeding."

"So are you," she whispered, aching to her bones. Her flesh itched, desperate for soap and hot water. Her eyes itched, desperate for sleep.  _But he promised,_  she reminded herself tiredly.  _He swore..._ _on the Darkness..._

He glanced at the infuriating mortal as he got to his feet. His body throbbed, but already the wounds were healing. This place, saturated with healing magic, accelerated his already sped-up healing abilities. Far off and away amidst the hills of Bethmoora, in the hidden city of Findias, he could feel the palace healers working on his sister's wounds. Now that the bullets had been removed, they would both heal quickly. He could limp. The flesh of his shoulder wound was slowly knitting back together, though he knew the stitching had been necessary. His ankle... well, he was not one-hundred-percent certain about how much damage there would be.

So he walked very carefully to one of his trunks and pulled out several articles of clothing. He tossed her three, which she barely caught. One of them landed on top of her face. His mouth twitched at how absurd she looked. Idiot humans; it was as if they were made to be mocked.

She pulled the garment - a pale blue silk shift that he kept for the occasional leman to wear - off her head and looked at him.

Finally, Dylan couldn't take it anymore. "I need to wash. You probably don't have running water in this place, but I..." She trailed off and looked at her hands. They were caked with drying blood the color of antique gold. "I have to get this off, I gotta-"

"Very well," he said only.

His muscles burned with fatigue and his wounds throbbed. The magic in the room, passive rather than active, did not numb the pain, though it slowly healed the injuries over time. But he knew that fae women and men who'd been tortured or ravished were always desperate to cleanse themselves of their attackers, of any reminder of the agony they'd endured. In this, it seemed, humans were no different than Elf-kind (though the idea of mortals and fae sharing any similarities beyond the need to breathe and consume sustenance disgusted him).

So he found a pitcher, filled it with water from the bucket by the well, and found a basin and a wash cloth. "I have no women's soap," he said coldly. "Nothing perfumed or soft."

The Elf despised the fact that he felt he ought to make excuses for the Spartan way in which he lived. He was a warrior, a soldier, and had no need for luxuries. The two he allowed himself were for homesickness's sake. The portrait of his sister, his other half, and the quilt from his dead mother's own hands, were the only pieces of home he had brought with him into exile besides his weapons. He need not apologize to  _her!_  She was nothing but a filthy human!

Nuada brought the basin down with an audible  _thunk_ , and the human jumped with a startled gasp. Her reaction made him feel like a monster terrorizing a little girl, but he shoved the feeling down and away, ignoring it with all his strength. He poured the water into the pewter basin and tossed in a wash cloth. For a moment, he just looked at the water. Then muttering something under his breath, he glanced at the well, and steam began wafting upwards from the surface of the water in the basin.

Dylan blinked in surprise.  _How did he do that?_

"I will turn my back. Wash yourself and dress in fresh garments. I promise," he added, every word coated with killing frost, "that I will not look." His words dripped with scorn. And so saying, the blond fae lord turned his back on her and began to slowly peel off the black silk trousers that were now slick with his blood. She saw he had his own basin full of water, a pitcher, and a cloth. Even as she watched, he peeled off the thin, black linen half-trousers that she realized belatedly were his underthings. Suddenly, there he stood, an Elven warrior, naked in front of her, covered in drying blood.

 _This night is stranger than any dream I've ever had_ , she thought vaguely as her mouth dropped open and her heart began to pound. The part of her that generated sheer terror squealed,  _He's naked, he's naked, he's naked, he's naked_ _, he's going to_ —

 _I_ _ **know!**_  Dylan yelled at herself, rage at her own pathetic weakness surging through her with every slamming beat of her heart against her sternum.  _I know he's naked! I got the concept, okay? Jeez. Shut up, brain._

Oblivious to Dylan's inner arguments, Nuada wrung the cloth out and began scrubbing almost viciously at his thigh, which was crusted with dark golden blood.

The doctor in her surged into the foreground. "Stop! You'll reopen your wounds!"

"Do not  _dare_  even  _think_  to command me, human," the Elf growled.

Dylan could feel the blood draining rapidly from her face, leaving her dizzy. She protested softly, "But...Highness, your wounds—"

"See to your own needs." His voice was like ice, and her heartbeat thundered like the drums of war. She heard the blood suddenly come rushing back through her head, and struggled to her feet. Fear or no, he was going to undo everything she'd just done if she didn't stop him.

"Sit down," she snapped, and grabbed the cloth out of his hand. "Let me." He growled at her and moved to grab the wash cloth, but she snatched it back from him and snarled, "Let me, you jerk. You could undo everything I spent the last several hours trying to repair. So hold still!" Her eyes were fear-bright, but she held onto her rage with all her strength, using it as a shield to hold back the hysterics.

In that moment, this human reminded him so strongly of Nuala as a child, when they had both suffered injury and his twin had been insistent on seeing to him before herself. She reminded him also of Shina'kin and Yukihime. He surprised himself by barking a hoarse laugh and sinking into a chair, muttering, "Very well. As you wish, little human healer."

"And don't move, please, Highness," Dylan added, and draped her cloth over his lap as best she could without touching him. The terrified woman simply could not see to him with his...his...with  _that_  staring her right in the face. Huffing in irritation, she allowed her thoughts to sink back into numbness induced by routine. How many times had she sponged and wiped blood off of someone who could not be taken to the hospital for various reasons? Gang kids, young street walkers, runaways—and those were just the humans. Then there were the ekeks, the fauns, the Wee Winks, and all the other fae that came to her for healing. The familiar motions almost made her calm. Never mind that this all-too-male Elf was eyeing her with a cold gaze like copper shards of ice. Dipping the cloth into the water, she began gently wiping off the blood from his leg wound. Her hands shook a little, but she was still careful. He hissed when she touched the stitched bullet hole.

"Sorry," Dylan murmured. Her hair hung in her face, tacky strings greased by sweat and blood and things she didn't want to think about. "I'm trying not to hurt you, I promise you I am. Just hold still. I'm nearly done." She was breathing shallowly when she moved between his blood-streaked thighs to clean the still-oozing wound in his belly, and he could hear every time she swallowed.

"I can do this myself," he informed her caustically. He noticed her face paling, her lips taking on a grayish-blue tinge. She seemed to be holding her breath. He wished he could do the same—the stench of her blood and mortality made the iron-induced nausea in the pit of his stomach almost vicious.

"Begging Your Highness's pardon, but I don't trust you not to hurt yourself," she informed him with no little acid.  _Rage,_  she thought.  _I am rage. Just rage. Oh, God, please help me..._ "I can't tell if you're doing what you're doing to piss me off and make me act like the humans you seem to know, or if you just want to die, or what. I don't care. I'm a healer; my duty here is quite clear. Until you either kill me or I'm able to walk out of here on my own, or until you're healed enough that you can carry me to the nearest hospital, I will not let you do yourself harm. You're already too thin," she added, glancing at the whipcord muscle clinging to his frame. "You're what, zero percent body fat? I don't think you eat right." She was babbling again, she knew it, but she couldn't seem to stop herself. It was like word vomit or something.

"You do not even  _know_ me," he said incredulously.

"I went to med school. Technically, I'm a doctor. Trust me, I know some stuff," Dylan replied, focusing intently on the wound in his shoulder and the one on his arm. She saw the powder-whiteness of his skin; the faint amber lines of infection leading from the wounds; the tracery of blue veins beneath the flesh. She wondered how he had managed to avoid bruising, especially around his wounds.

As for Dylan, her entire right side, cracked ribs and all, was a mass of black and purple, and so was her face beneath the slashing cuts. "You are not healthy," she informed him in a clear, firm voice. Her doctor voice. It only quavered a little, which was great, because she needed it to hide behind. "I bet you don't sleep enough, either."

"I am a strong warrior—"

"Begging your pardon again, but even an Elf's body must wear out eventually. You're speeding up the clock. You should rest more, Highness. You're working yourself too hard."

"You know nothing of what you speak," he snapped. How dare she imply that she, a mere mortal, could possibly understand the need for constant vigilance, agonizing preparation? What did she know of the fae and their struggle to survive in the world of the disgusting, vile humans? The unofficial war between the fae and mankind made no allowances for personal weaknesses such as sickness or exhaustion, and neither could he.

She looked up at him for a moment, then said, "Back, please." When he was in position, she said softly, "I know a lot more than most people give me credit for." She began to clean the wounds on his back and the back of his thigh. "I know that the fae royal families have princesses who are often powerful sorceresses. Their princes and noblemen are great warriors... like you," she added, intent on her work. Her voice was slurring, but she did not seem to notice. "Valorous, courageous, strong, swift. Great tacticians and all that. And I know that the fae fear a war with humans."

"How do you know this?" He demanded. How could she possibly?

"I hear things."

"But  _how_ do you hear them?"

"I know how to listen, Sire. I also know that the greatest warriors of the fae will prepare for war because they fear it draws all too close. Remind you of anyone? All these things, I know. I also know that even the bravest, strongest, best warriors need time to rest. Constant vigilance, Your Highness," she added softly, "can lay you low more effectively sometimes than all of the enemies' tricks." And she put the cloth back in the bloody water and went back to where the garments he had thrown at her lay upon the cold stone floor. "If you'd be so kind as to turn your back?"

He did, thinking hard.

Dylan watched him warily the entire time as she pulled off her once-new red dress, now ruined, and her stockings, her ripped camisole, her bra. Her panties had been lost by the train tracks what seemed like eons ago. She washed the scarlet and gold from her hands as best she could, then scrubbed the dried blood from the rest of her skin. She was only careful patting at the scabbing cuts on her face. Her flesh was raw and painful by the time she was finished, but she was clean, blessedly clean. Using the rest of the water, she rinsed the slime of cruelty and savage lust from her hair.

Still eyeing the Elf's back doubtfully, she pulled on the pale blue shift and black kirtle he had provided for her, and tied it loosely with the white sash-like girdle before sinking to the floor, hunched against the leg of the wooden table. It was a good hiding place; in the light, still, but shadowed enough that if she remained still, he might forget about her. And it had the added benefit of also being several feet away from the Elf himself.

She watched him dress, nothing else on hand to do. Even sick and wounded, shot full of holes and stitched up, he was still powerful enough, strong enough, inhuman enough to move with savage, primal grace. He was also stupid enough that he was probably bleeding again. He wasn't acting hurt, when he should have been favoring his injured bits. He was acting as if he were in the peak of health.

 _He makes no sense,_  she thought, irritated. Pure tiredness was beginning to drown the icy ball of fear in her chest.  _Fae lord or not, he's being stupid._

The Elf pulled on loose black trousers and a loose, blood-red tunic, and sank heavily into the chair by the table. He sighed and allowed his head to fall back. For a long time, there was silence. Dylan could hear the rushing of midnight subway trains, the velvet buzz of fluorescent lights flickering, the thumping drum of her own heart against her ribs. She also heard the musical softness of his breathing, steady and even for the most part, but hitching every few moments, as if pain was sneaking up on him and attacking him from behind. The mortal woman watched him, drinking in the sight of him.

Proof, here was proof. She'd known, she'd always known, but ever since she'd come back from the institutions, the greater fae had mostly avoided her. Only the lesser of the faeries had sought her out. She'd been eighteen. An adult. And she no longer lived in the still half-wild woods of Jersey, but in New York City. Even moving to the edge of Central Park hadn't been quite the same. There was no reason she ought to have been able to See them any longer.

But she did. Dylan had always been able to See. She Saw now, especially. There was an Elven warrior—an actual  _prince_ —sitting in front of her. And there was something so strangely familiar about him...

"We seem to find ourselves at an impasse," he said suddenly. She jumped, startled from her reverie. The act hurt. "You, a human, have saved my life more than once. I owe you a debt of honor. And at the same time, mortals are my sworn enemies and I loathe them and their depraved ways. Add to that that you have discovered one of my sanctuaries. Any other human, I would dispatch without a qualm. But you...I cannot."

 _Cannot?_ She thought, surprised.  _Why not?_

It wasn't as if she could stop him. With the way he had handled those brilliantly silver war axes, she knew he could kill her in seconds, even in his current condition. Even as she watched, the wound at his ankle was slowly scabbing over, as if hours of healing were only taking moments. She wondered if it was him, or something else. Since she felt better with every second—though nowhere close to a stone's throw away from halfway to semi-okay—she had to figure it was the room, or maybe the air. Something that affected them both.

"It pains me to say these things," he continued, almost as if talking to himself. "Mortals are prideful, greedy, hollow creatures and yet I owe my life to one, a terrible thought. And yet you are no ordinary mortal, are you? I know of no other who would risk life and limb for someone you do not even know, much less one of my people; someone who looks as I do is obviously fae. You knew me for a faerie, yet you still sought to aid me. I cannot kill you. The mystery of it would drive me mad. What kind of human saves a faery?"

"I do," she mumbled bitterly. He didn't hear her words, only her voice's soft whisper.

"Silence. I'm not finished. Yes, it's certain that I cannot kill you. Yet you are a mortal. It is what you call a conundrum. I ought to kill you. My duty as a prince of my people requires it." He saw her eyes becoming bigger and bigger in her face. She looked like a frightened cat. If she'd had fur, it would have been standing on end. The terror in her eyes should have gratified him. Instead, it sent a shaft of discomfort through the Elven prince. The human  _had_  saved him. More than once. "Yet my own honor requires I do not. What would you do in my situation?" He asked too-casually.

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. Her? He was asking  _her?_

"Me?" She squeaked, then added belatedly, "Sire." Her head hurt. Her brain was squealing like a frightened pig that this was a trap, that she was going to die, that he was setting her up. She remembered suddenly that his promise not to harm her had only extended until she was done tending his injuries.

"Yes," the Elf said too softly. "I wish to hear your thoughts."

Nuada had to admit, he was baiting her. But...he hurt. His body ached, his wounds burned, his head throbbed, and he stank of human blood, both human-wolf and "innocent" blood. It sickened him, angered him. And, even though it was indirectly, it was still her fault. He was taking it out on her unfairly, but in that moment he did not care. And another part of him wanted to see how tricky she could be. What kind of viper had he invited into his little nest, he wondered? How cleverly could she twist her words, and his? He did not trust her. He could not. She was human.

"Um..." Dylan sucked in her cheek, biting it in thought, trying to quell her panic. Pain lanced through her face at the action, and her face betrayed her. "Ow. Um..." She suddenly felt like the storyteller from  _the Arabian Nights_ , walking on eggshells with her words. "Well...a king—or a prince or a lord," she amended hastily, "without personal honor...cannot hope to be an honorable...um...ruler to his people...and a dishonorable one..." Blue eyes watched him warily, looking for a reaction. He only watched her, chin on his fist.  _Where was I?_  She wondered, and remembered,  _Oh, yeah! A dishonorable ruler_  "brings shame to his kingdom."

His mouth twitched with somewhat wry amusement. It was a very diplomatic answer. Where had she learned such... skill?

Nuada suddenly narrowed his eyes in suspicion. When she shrank away from him, he felt like a monster again. Cursing silently, he tried to put a gentler expression on his face - or at least a more neutral one. He was treating her like a prisoner, when she had done nothing to deserve his enmity and everything to earn his gratitude. She made him feel as if he were torturing a fae child, instead of manipulating an adult human.

The blond Elf shook his head to clear it and wished he had not when his skull began to pound. He put a hand to his forehead, trying to make sure all the pieces of his skull were still in their proper places. The nausea worsened until he was almost sure he'd be violently sick. Fortunately he managed to suppress the urge to retch. Showing weakness to a mortal would have been insupportable.

Dylan felt the tension drain out of her. The situation still had her scared, no doubt about that. But blood loss, trauma, and the late hour were finally taking a toll. She looked at him, and saw his intense scrutiny was no longer fixed on her.

"Begging Your Highness's pardon, but...now what?" She whispered, letting her head fall backward. Her voice was a worn thread of sound, on the verge of emotional and physical exhaustion. He glanced at her sharply, saw her head lolling on her neck. She was tired. So was he—so very tired.

Gently, though he did not know where such gentility came from, he said, "We will discuss it in the morning. You should sleep."

"I'd rather not, if it's all the same, Sire," she said simply. Nuada might have snarled at her—how dare she argue with him?—but he heard something behind her voice that made him nod once to her. She was like no other human he had ever met. What human would not relish the chance to sleep, to indulge in sloth?

Apparently, this one. Perhaps she feared dreams.

Or perhaps she feared  _him_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References Made in This Chapter:
> 
> \- Gawped is so a word. I promise. I know that's not a reference, but I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that.
> 
> \- The thing about "you saved me from the wolves" was inspired by "You saved us from the wolves," which is a line in the non-Disney sequel to Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the movie called Happily Ever After (you know, with the Wicked Queen's brother and the seven Dwarfelles and Mother Nature and all that).
> 
> \- The whole bit about Dylan helping Nuada being the decent thing to do was inspired by X-Men Origins: Wolverine. There's this whole thing with these really nice old people that help Wolverine and it's really cool and cute and it's the best part of the movie, really.
> 
> \- "If it cries to you that it hurts, if you can, ease its pain" was cited last chapter. It's going to be Dylan's mantra while dealing with Prince Prissy-Pants (yes, I'm talking about Nuada)
> 
> \- The line "You just tried to strangle me" was vaguely inspired by an episode of Inuyasha where the title character's brother's tries to kill Kagome, the love interest. She responds with, "Hey! You tried to kill me, didn't you?"
> 
> \- "Ah. It speaks." is not inspired by anything. It's a coincidence that it's reminiscent of a line from the movie Doom.
> 
> \- The Darkness That Eats All Things is a concept I first heard in a Meredith Gentry novel (Laurell K. Hamilton) but, in the same way that she didn't make up the Sluagh or the Gabriel Ratchets, I doubt she made that up, either.
> 
> \- It said on the International Movie Database that it seemed as if Nuada and Nuala's blood was a deep, dark gold, instead of red. This is supported by the color Nuala's sleeve turns when Nuada gets that cut on his arm, and by the twin cuts on their faces in the Library Scene.
> 
> \- Everyone should recognize the line "Just hold still" from Disney's Beauty and the Beast.
> 
> \- Word vomit is a concept from Mean Girls.
> 
> \- The line "hear the rushing of midnight subway trains" is a rehash of the line "I can hear that lullaby of the midnight train" from the country song "Boondocks" by Little Big Town. It's a beautiful song, actually, though a bit twangy.
> 
> \- The description of Dylan as a viper really was inspired by something. I was looking for a descriptor and couldn't think of one. Then I watched Sense and Sensibility and laughed my butt off at the part when Mrs. Ferrars screams, "Viper in my bosom!" at Lucy Steele.
> 
> \- I first heard that thing about "pieces of his skull" from Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton. I was never sure if she meant it as a feeling or literally, the person's skull was in pieces.


	4. Second Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the darkness of the underground sanctuary, Dylan and Nuada are both haunted by shadows of past torments...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: more in-depth discussion of abuse survival, mentions of rape and survival of sexual assault, physical injuries, torture, mental illness, psychiatric therapy, and psychiatric drugs.

**4\. Second Night**

**that is**

**A Short Tale of Tears, Memories, the Fate of an Elf Queen, and a Bath**

.

.

Silent screams choked Dylan awake. She bolted upright as panic shrieked under her skin and pain burned through her. She fought desperately against the urge to be sick, biting down on her fist until blood welled up and dripped down her arm. Only then, as memory slowly seeped back into her mind, did the sheer terror ease its throttling grip on her throat a little, and she remembered how she'd gotten here.

The Elf had carried her to this bed, hadn't he? He must have, as she'd fallen asleep (or possibly unconscious), soothed by the comforting warmth of the Spirit in her chest, leaning against the table where he now sat. Was he awake?

Dylan shot the Elven prince one wild-shy glance and saw the pale man in a red tunic and black breeches asleep in his chair, his head tilted forward so that his chin rested on his chest and his long, blond hair curtained his face, shielding him from view.

At the sight of him, memory flashed through her mind -  _hands choking, fists beating, bones cracking, flesh tearing, and the blood, so much blood_ \- and she gasped softly as her body constricted in pain, both physical and not. Tears burning her eyes, she curled in on herself like a snail, cradling her pain to her chest. Had he...had he done anything to her? Touched her? Or...or...

A sharp heat flared in her chest, a soothing balm against the icy terror threatening to shake her apart. No, he wouldn't do that to her. He'd saved her. He wouldn't hurt her at least until tomorrow, when they discussed their current situation again. Not this one. He'd keep his promise.

But others would hurt her. Others  _had_.

Not wanting to wake her rescuer, she didn't cry. Dylan had no idea as to whether he would be angry at being awakened by mortal weeping, and she didn't have to touch the raw necklace of shadows around her throat to remember how much damage he could do when enraged. But her entire body shuddered with pain and fury, shuddered because it had happened  _again_. Those monsters...those  _monsters_...And they'd almost  _killed_  her. If not for the prince, they would have killed her. She'd almost died, slowly, brutally. That had never been the kind of death she wanted, whenever she'd thought about it she'd always tried for a quick, relatively easy death, not one of torment and screaming...

A whimper managed to escape her, and the slumbering Elf in the chair stirred. Dylan immediately forced herself to get quiet. To hold herself together, clutching her fragmenting soul to her chest, she bit her lip until she tasted the copper tang of blood. Tiny tremors shook her body. She wouldn't cry. She would  _not._  She wouldn't wake the Elf. From the look of him, he needed to sleep for a lot longer if he was going to recover. He seemed worn, stretched, too thin in body, soul, and mind.

And she...she was...

When her body stopped shaking, the brunette reached up and hesitantly touched her face. Dylan found hard, crusted lines where her attackers had slashed her face, thin and thick scabs that hurt whenever she changed expression. Sighing, she allowed her hands to fall back against the soft quilt. Her brother had warned her about this when she'd decided to counsel troubled teens. Those men had attacked her to send a brutal and terrible message from Tito, from their leader. They'd wanted to make sure it was driven home, right to her heart. Make sure she knew not to mess with them or one of theirs again.

Just the thought of their rough hands, like coarse animal hair, and their hot fetid breath...their beady, bestial eyes...the knife slicing through her skin...Dylan fought hard not to be violently sick. As a child, she had seen...some awful things. Experienced far worse things. It was one of the reasons she could possess any measure of calm now.

_"We warned you,_  puta _. Never mess with our_ chicas _, yeah?"_

Lisa, they were talking about Lisa, but she'd had to. She'd  _had_  to. For Lisa's sake. For the girl who needed help and couldn't trust anyone but the therapist who Saw what she Saw, who knew about the magical world that existed like blood beneath the skin of the mortal realm. She'd had to help that girl, the girl who was so much like her.

And still the wolves growled and snarled,  _"Now you'll remember... every time you look in the mirror."_

Her nails had left bloody crescents in her palms and her throat ached from holding back her scream by the time the memory faded enough for her to beat it back into the depths of her brain with a mental sledgehammer. She'd woken in an icy terrified sweat from dark memory-dreams nearly her entire life. After eleven years of poisonous thorazine pumped through her blood, after ten more years of after-effects, Dylan knew how to deal with nightmares.

She could handle this. She could  _handle_  this.

Coldly, logically, she thought hard about her  _situation_ , while trying not to think about the attack itself. With a mind as icy and clinical as she could make it, she assessed the damage done to her body. Dylan allowed the part of her mind not occupied with conscious thought to dwell on the pain in her body, the only thing keeping her collected.

Her face had more than twenty cuts criss-crossing her features, but there was no nerve damage. Of course, there would be scars, though she didn't really care. There was always the viable option of covering them with makeup. Or getting rid of the mirrors in her cottage. There was only the one in her bathroom.

Or she could simply get used to seeing the thin, raised lines the wounds would leave behind, as if her face had been flogged by the thin lash of a faerie waggoner's whip.

Then there was the bruising. She knew from the difficulty she had breathing that her ribs were cracked, but having had broken ribs before, she knew that this time, hers were not. Still, if the pain worsened at all, or anything else hit her torso, she'd have to find her way to a hospital immediately. Punctured lungs were one of her prime fears relative to broken ribs.

Her cheekbone was cracked, but since her eye was still in its socket, she seriously doubted it was broken. None of her limbs or fingers or toes were damaged, though she'd lost a fingernail in the scuffle with her attackers. The main threat to her health was the effects of her rape.

She hadn't been a virgin, thanks to the hell her life had been in the institution. Thanks to two vicious monsters who thrived on the pain of others. That fact had most likely saved her life. The blood and pain were from minor tears and severe abrasions, but she had seen women—women with less internal scarring, less experience with moving the way chronic victims often forced themselves to learn in order to avoid serious damage over years of abuse—she'd seen these girls and women bleed to death from a vicious rape. Luckily, she wasn't bleeding anymore; she'd made sure of that before going to sleep, and surreptitiously checked again now. No fresh blood. So that danger wasn't quite as prevalent in her mind any longer. It seemed that all she would need to do once she'd healed up a little was get therapy.

Therapy.

Two scalding tears rolled down her cheeks and soaked the pillow she rested her head upon. The idea of talking to a psychiatrist, even though that was her profession, made her shudder with revulsion, with a child's shame of weakness and a woman's rage at being made to feel helpless yet again. Shudder from phantom memories. The echoes of old wounds. The pain of the betrayed and confused. Self-loathing so deep only a child would understand where and when it came from, how it still breathed and festered.

She ignored it, refused to let it hurt her. Refused to acknowledge that she felt any of it.

_It's not my fault,_  she thought.  _None of it was my fault. It has never been my fault. I won't_ let it be  _my fault._ Memories more than two decades old. Memories more recent than those. A child's memories, and a girl's. A woman's pain mingling with a child's nightmare. But she wouldn't let herself be that child anymore. She wasn't seven years old anymore, or twelve, or fifteen, or nineteen or twenty. She was twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine, and strong, and she would  _not_  let those memories hurt anymore.

Dylan fought the tears back. A study-partner of hers in med school had often said she would die an early death from fighting back the urge to cry the way she did, and refusing to allow herself to vent disappointments in any way. As a psychiatrist, Dylan even knew that it was unhealthy. She thought her old partner, Julian, might have been right about the early death; every time she suppressed her tears, it became harder, and her chest ached, as if she were having a minor heart attack. Maybe she was. Maybe her body was storing up all the anguish like a battery, and one day her defenses would crumble under the D-cell power.

"I will not fault you for weeping," the ice-cold voice murmured from the chair. "You needn't stifle your tears."

Dylan jumped at the sound of his voice and winced when her body protested stridently. Glancing over at him, she opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it. She had no idea what kind of footing she was on with this person.

But she had to say something about the tears. She felt stupid, letting him see how shaken she was, how much the attack had upset her. After all the brutality she'd dealt with in her life, was she really going to cry about this? Cry, like some naive child who had no idea that men were vicious, cruel monsters? She wasn't Sorcha of Sevenwaters, after all, that innocent daughter of the forest from one of her favorite books, an untested girl taken unawares. Rape and torture was nothing new. She wouldn't let herself cry over old memories again. Nor new ones, either. She'd sworn to herself years ago never to cry over anything that happened to her. Never again. Never.

"You may not fault me, Your Highness," she muttered. "But I'd fault myself. I don't have a good reason to cry." The words were more for herself than him. "I'm alive, aren't I? I'm not going to die anytime soon. This isn't going to kill me. I'd only be crying about... anyway, it's stupid to cry over something I can't change." After all, all crying ever got her was a soggy pillow and a brain and body too exhausted to fight back when the time came. That route was never an option. Fighting back was the only choice, even if she died fighting.

"I am used to human weakness. It is considered acceptable by your people's standards to cry."

"But not by mine," she hissed. "I will  _not_ be weak."  _Never_   _again. Never._

"Those are the words," he said coldly, "of one who has learned the painful lesson that enemies do not respect tears of grief, and only rejoice in their making. Is this not so?"

His words lanced her. She never cried if she could help it; it brought the predators down on her like rabid dogs. Self-preservation demanded she keep the tears back. But how could he know that?

And why was he suddenly being so kind to her? His voice, like ice. His words, like friendship. It was almost as if he were trying to console her, trying to tell her that he understood. The thought made her face burn and her hands clench beneath the quilt. He didn't understand. She was so sick of people saying they did. At the most, he might think his words applied to common human bullies or perhaps torturers who worked for her enemies. Maybe her attackers. After all, he was an Elf in a time many fey considered to be wartime.

But that wasn't what she meant. It wasn't what she was referring to at all.

Suddenly, the faces of her family swam before her eyes, and she gritted her teeth. Loneliness and a feeling like homesickness, but different, a longing for a person instead of a place, welled up in her chest. She missed her twin brother. She missed her cousin Renee. And how she despised the rest of her family, even though she didn't want to. Sisters, parents, for abandoning her. Her aunt and uncle, too powerless to save her. She hated them all, even though she loved them, too. How she hated the world, and humanity, and yes, even the rescuer who had been too late to save her before such vicious damage had been done. Men. She hated them, all of them, even though she knew it wasn't fair.

For just a moment, Dylan allowed her loathing, her hate, her rage, to wash up and over her, to pour off of her like a black tsunami; all of that pain, all of that anguish and hatred, directed at men.

With something that might have been a snarl, she flung back the quilt and got to her feet. She didn't know what she was going to do, but she wasn't just going to sit here and stew in her own distress. Dylan noticed distractedly that her abrupt movement had caused the Elf in the chair to suddenly jerk upright, eyes intent on her form. Her face, she knew, was a mask of ice-cold rage.

Unfortunately, the effect of her mini-tantrum was thwarted by the fact that she then had to sink back down to the bed as a roaring filled her ears and her vision began to go gray.

"I hate you," she moaned softly.

Images of her parents, her siblings, the men who'd attacked her, all filled her mind. Her eyes burned. The mortal had no idea whether or not she were speaking to the Elf in the room with her, her treacherous family, the twin brother that had never been there when she needed him, the wolf-men who had attacked her, the demons from her childhood, or herself, huddled and pathetic on the bed.  _I'm not a little girl anymore. They can't make me a little girl again. Not ever._

Biting down on her lip until fresh blood from the cuts flowed, she sank her nails into her palms. Her shoulders shook, and her mouth twisted into a grimace of despair. Dylan covered her face with bleeding hands to hide the evidence of her lack of composure.

"I hate this. I  _hate_ this." The word 'this' referring to her ever-increasing compulsion to weep aloud, sobbing like the terrified child she'd been all those years ago. She couldn't be that child again or she would shatter into a million pieces.

A hand fell on her shoulder, and she jerked back in surprise, a soft sound of fear escaping her lips. She looked up quickly into the blank, empty face of the blond Elf standing above her. He was expressionless as he sank onto the bed beside her. With a wild cry, she scuttled off the bed and hunched against the nearby wall, shaking. Too close, he was  _too close_. How had she allowed herself to be so consumed by her own thoughts that she hadn't noticed his approach? Never mind the fact that he was an Elf. She couldn't let her guard down! She'd only slept because she'd been so exhausted and couldn't help it!

He said, very,  _very_  softly, "I hate humans. I have always hated them, nearly as far back as I can remember. They are empty creatures without hearts or souls. I despise them. Every act of cruelty and pain and suffering they inflict on themselves is likely well deserved by their breed. If not for the debt I owe you, I would cut off your head before you could draw a full breath.  _I_  hate  _you_."

He fell silent for a while, as if thinking, arms resting on his thighs, and her tears cut at her eyes. Her lips trembled. Why was he saying these things to her? Was he trying to say the attack was her fault?

Dylan drove her nails into her forearms, trying to suppress the hurt and black emotion in her chest. She narrowed her icy blue eyes at him, knowing and hating the fact that her nose was swollen and red, her eyes flecked with gold, her eyelashes spiked by tears, her cheeks splotchy with color. She hated that. She hated to be vulnerable, but more importantly, she despised looking that way. Why was he saying these things to her?

_Not my fault. It's not my fault._

Then he said, "I have a twin sister, Nuala. She is my life. But when I was a boy, she and I were very close to our mother, Queen Cethlenn. A mortal like yourself, born after the time of magic and wonder that you humans could never fully come to appreciate, has never seen a creature like my mother." For a moment, Nuada trailed off as memory swamped him, and he spoke almost to himself. "A creature of grace, ethereal beauty, dazzling charm. The fae praised my mother for her wisdom, even the Elves of my father's court, though she was Fomori and we were Tuathan. For centuries, she was my father's greatest advisor. Her hair was...blood red, rubies and garnets spun into the finest silk strands. Eyes like leaves hammered from emeralds, but they turned to beaten silver in the moonlight. Skin the color of marble, like an alabaster statue. My mother was so very beautiful, and kind. So very kind. I...my sister and I...loved her very much.

"One day, over three thousand of years ago, we were walking in the woods of Renvyle, my mother and sister and I, thinking it safe, and humans attacked us. Men, thirteen of them. A pack of wolves in men's clothing. They murdered our simple guard and defiled my mother. They..." The Elf prince's hands curled into fists that trembled slightly. "They used more than their bodies. She fought them, but she was not armed for war, and there were too many. Still, she tried...desperately, she tried to give my sister and I a chance to escape. We ran, but we were only children. They caught us.

"My mother bled to death from what they did to her while they beat her children, shattering our bones, breaking us under their hands. In the midst of my mother's desecration, I realized they were going to kill my sister and I, but a passing troll warrior attacked and killed them, saving us.  _That_  is why  _I_  saved  _you_ ," he added softly. "I would not have what happened to my mother, to so many of the Fae during the countless wars with your kind, to happen to  _anyone_ , ally or enemy, mortal or immortal, fae-kind or human. Your kind kill each other every day, every moment, but no one deserves the death they meant to give you. I would," he said softly, tonelessly, "that I could have been there before any damage had been done. You are the only human who has ever forced me to taste the bitterness of regret. The only human," he whispered, "to whom I owe a debt. Think on that."

He got up and went back to his chair, propping his chin on his fist and looking resolutely away from her.

Dylan blinked, and wondered why she had felt revulsion radiating off of him when he'd been near her, even as he'd been speaking to make her feel better. Why had he confided such a painful memory to her? Unless he was trying to tell her something, and she had missed it.

Sighing, she realized she would probably never figure it out while her skin crawled like a thousand insects and her eyes burned with unshed tears.

Dylan asked tentatively, "Your wounds, Sire...how do they feel?" She felt like she ought to do something to break the ice, even though all she wanted was to run and hide in the shower and never come out. Water had always made her feel safe.

"They are well enough." His voice was firm again, and icy. The brunette woman felt as if she'd been tossed into a mountain stream in January.

"May I see?" Dylan asked softly.

_When in doubt,_ she thought,  _resort to medicine. Excellent conversational topic_. Her sarcasm could, unfortunately, only be appreciated by herself inside her own head. Wiping at her cheeks, she wondered absently how much longer she could hold back her tears before they broke out of her in a flood. Days? Weeks? Months? A year or two more at the most? She doubted it would be longer.

But only a portion of her mind dwelt on this. The main part of her consciousness was spent trying to futilely exploit her nearly non-existent psychic powers against the Elf in an attempt to force him to remove his clothing, so that she could examine his injuries. He only turned to stare into her eyes, the pale yellow ice of his gaze boring into her skull.

"You're not going to let me see, are you?" She muttered. Somehow, he shook his head without moving a muscle. It boggled the mind. Sighing, she asked, "In that case, is there any chance I could take a bath, Your Highness?"

He gestured impatiently towards the door to the left of the fireplace, which she assumed led to a wash room. Slender etchings of golden-haired nymphs frolicked in a pool on the door. Dylan glanced at the Elf, but he wouldn't look at her anymore. Great. Now he was just making her nervous.

Irritated, she got up slowly, her knees quaking, pain radiating from her joints, and, after grabbing her purse - and its comforting collection of stones - made her incredibly slow way to that door, wandering how she was going to manage all by herself in there. Trying unsuccessfully to put the thought out of her head, she opened the gold-etched, wooden door and slipped into the room.

Nuada waited until Dylan had quietly shut the door behind her before the Elf muttered something that sounded like,

_"Candles. Rose._  
 _Towels. Clothes._  
_Water hot and blue,_  
_Soap and shampoo."_

For some reason, a reason the Elf prince had never been able to discover, crinaeae and other elemental faeries had an affection for silly rhymes. They liked them, apparently, and so silly rhymes so simple and ridiculous that a child might have invented them were then recited as spells. It was basically all a game of pretend, but the chores got done. He felt an acknowledgment from the crinaeae, salamander, and sylph that were bound to the bathing room, and knew they would easily handle his wishes.

**.**

Dylan found the bathtub full when she closed the door to the wash room. It was a gargantuan bath made of white marble veined with gold and silver, in the shape of a tree. A foot of tub wall stood between the floor - which was rough, red stone - and the surface of the water, which steamed. The white mist rising off the water smelled of rose petals. Placed in little cubbies set about a foot apart in that wall were candles, fat pillar candles the color of a twilight sky. Tiny candle flames flickered and danced, illuminating the room. Beside one of the candles was a shelf that held an ivory bar of soap in the shape of a sea shell, and a dark green bottle of what was probably shampoo shaped like a rose. Rising up behind that shelf and cubby was a wall, set apart from the actual walls of the room, carved by thousands of tiny shelves to create a waterfall effect.

Carefully undressing, Dylan laid the sash, dress, and shift over a chair by the door and walked slowly to the edge of the bath. Steps led from the floor into the tub. The rails gleamed golden. She walked into the water, grateful for the steaming liquid and its soothing touch against her skin. The brunette ducked under the water, and held her breath, relishing the feeling of weightlessness and isolation the water offered.

She wanted to stay there forever.

**.**

Nuada had not the slightest idea what to do with this human that his sense of honor had dropped into his lap. Dylan was more of a trial than he had anticipated. He had forgotten, in his long exile, that women who had suffered defilement were skittish, paranoid, and hydrophiles. The human moved around him as if he were one of the craven beasts that had forced themselves upon her. She flinched every time he glanced her way. The competent, truculent, if somewhat nervous human who had seen to his wounds had vanished while he had slept. Perhaps he'd dreamed of the primitive surgery and Dylan's skill with the needle, her incogruously gentle bedside manner and strange sense of confidence.

But his fingers slipped beneath the collar of his shirt and unerringly found the wound in his shoulder, puckered and warm from the sickness he knew would be there. He fingered the end of the sewing thread in his flesh.

Could Dylan truly be a human? She did not move like a human, or speak like one - for the most part, anyway. No vile expletives, no blasphemies or curses. The only thing human about her was her scent and her features. That alone informed him that she was exactly as she said. She was mortal, a daughter of mankind, a Child of Mud. Yet this daughter of the Mud People had doctored his wounds, tenderly washed the blood from his skin, even though it was plain for all to see that she was stark terrified of him.

She made no sense. Of that, he was certain.

So wrapped up in his own thoughts was he that he didn't at first hear the soft, heartbroken singing coming from the bathing chamber. When the soft sounds reached him, he found himself on his feet before his abused ankle had enough time to protest. The Elven prince limped to the door. The melody was off-key and yet, hoarse and out of tune as Dylan was, Nuada felt as if he ought to recognize the tune.

_"For you know, once even I was a_  
Little child, and I was afraid,  
_But a gentle someone always came_  
_To dry all my tears,_  
_Trade sweet sleep for fears,_  
_And to give a kiss goodnight._

_"Well, now I am grown_  
_And these years have shown_  
_That rain's a part of how life goes,_  
_But it's dark and it's late,_  
_So I'll hold you and wait_  
_'Till your frightened eyes do close,_  
_And I hope that you'll know..._ "

Then he heard a soft sob and a splash. There was no more singing.

Nuada waited for what seemed like hours. Seated at the table, absently tracing the bullet holes on his torso through the thin linen shirt, he watched as the sand in his tiny, copper and unpolished crystal hourglass trickled into the bottom. The sand was whiter than bones. Even as he watched, the little hourglass flipped itself over, marking the end of the second hour since the singing had so abruptly ended.

He did not wish to admit it, but he was starting to become concerned for the mortal. His honor demanded he keep the human alive as long as she remained in his care. How long could one mortal stay in the water? Had she possibly drowned?

Muttering to himself, he got to his feet, intent on discovering just what she did in the bathing room, her bath having most likely been over for some time. He refused to allow her to indulge in laziness while she remained at his sanctuary.

**.**

Dylan blew the air in her lungs out with a whoosh that surrounded her with bubbles. She almost smiled. Every hour, it seemed, this bathtub drained completely and refilled. It didn't seem as if there were enough time for it to be done, but somehow it took moments only. She was grateful, however, as it kept the water deliciously hot.

Her skin, though she had scrubbed it until her flesh should have been rendered a raw and bloody mess, was sparkling clean and rosy pink, fragrantly scented with the essence of lilies and roses. There was no blood on her skin, either from the attack or from any bleeding that may have occurred during the night. That made her relax even further into the steaming hot water.

Leaning back to allow the cascade of hot water from the carved waterfall to pour over her hair and back, she sighed.

Dylan hadn't felt this relaxed or safe in years, since she was a child in New Jersey, surrounded by the forests and meadows that lay all around her Uncle Thaddeus and Aunt Niamh's house. Grateful for the peace surrounding her, the glow of the candles and the sound of the water singing over marble, she smiled wanly and closed her eyes, allowing the tension to drain from her body completely.

Safe. This place was safe.

The door slammed open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References Made In This Chapter:
> 
> \- the thing about Dylan snailing is from Witch Baby by Francesca Lia Block
> 
> \- the holding her heart/chest/soul bit is from New Moon by Stephanie Meyer
> 
> \- Yes, I took the whole "I feel thin, stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread" from Lord of the Rings and warped it a bit.
> 
> \- The fact that Dylan's face was sliced up like that was inspired by the 80s tv show, Beauty and the Beast, with Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman.
> 
> \- The way Dylan recollects the rape was vaguely inspired by Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys by Francesca Lia Block
> 
> \- The thing about "every time you look in the mirror" is quoted directly from "Once Upon a Time in New York," the first episode of Beauty and the Beast.
> 
> \- The thing about the lash and the faerie waggoner is inspired by Mercutio's monologue about Queen Mab in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. He mentions that Mab's chariot is a walnut (I think) that is "drawn by a team of little atomies over men's noses as they lie asleep," her waggoner or driver is "a small, gray-coated gnat," and that his whip is made of spidersilk.
> 
> \- I heard the thing about eyes popping out of sockets due to broken cheekbones in A Kiss of Shadows, by Laurell K. Hamilton. Be careful about reading these books, though, they're really graphic.
> 
> \- A friend of mine actually did tell me I'd die an early death if I didn't let myself cry. His name wasn't Zach, though.
> 
> \- Sorcha of Sevenwaters, the main character of Daughter of the Forest, in my opinion didn't really have an understanding of the evil that men could do to women. She seemed... shocked by the concept of rape.
> 
> \- Originally Nuada's mother was named Tualha. Tualha is the name of the kitten-bard from A Wizard Abroad by Diane Duane. However, I discovered that Balor of Irish mythology was married to the Fomorian woman Cethlenn, so I changed it.
> 
> \- The thing about Dylan being the only human to ever make Nuada feel regret was inspired by The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. The Unicorn, who had been turned into a human for a while, fell in love with Prince Lyrr while she was human, and this love allowed her to feel regret for Lyrr, something she couldn't do before then.
> 
> \- I came up with the design for that bathtub all on my own. I like bathtubs. I like creating really cool looking bathtubs. I just do. I dunno why.
> 
> \- That thing about "a child of mud" is from Artemis Fowl. The fae in that series call humans "Mud Men."
> 
> \- The song Dylan sings in the bath is "A Lullaby for a Stormy Night" by Vienna Teng.


	5. Sixth Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frightened by his abrupt appearance, Dylan lashes out at Nuada, resulting in unforeseen consequences...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains nudity, mentions of violence, medical gore, surgical situations, threats, mentions of mental illness, and mentions of torture.
> 
> Hypoventilation is the opposite of hyperventilation - so not breathing often enough.
> 
> Concerning the Chapter Title: "In the Insomniac Night" is a short story by Joyce Carol Oates. Apparently it's a redone fairy tale, but I don't know which one. I can't figure it out, and I've read the darn thing several times. But anyway, it's in the anthology Black Swan, White Raven (seriously, you guys should just read all of those anthologies).

 

**A Short Tale of Mistaken Intentions, Fresh Blood, Another Promise, the Revelation of Names, and a Tale From Dylan's Childhood**

.

.

The door slammed open.

Dylan's eyes popped open, and she shrieked. Her hand found the exquisitely-shaped, green glass bottle of rose-scented shampoo, grabbed it in white-knuckled fingers, and threw it as hard as she could towards the door before scrambling madly out of the tub and grabbing the towel. She refused to be attacked while naked – call it a self-confidence thing, or just inconvenience. Having random parts of her anatomy flopping around while she ran was also distracting, not to mention painful. She couldn't afford any sort of distraction in a fight. Hastily covering herself, she reached into her purse and snatched up one of her rocks. She needed to get more soon, she thought a bit wildly. She was running out.

Then Dylan's wide eyes focused on the – quite furious – personage standing in the doorway and felt the blood drain from her face.

"I-I-I-I thought y-you were... I'm s-sorry, Y-Your Highness, I thought... you're g-g-gonna k-kill me now, aren't you?"

"Can you think of a reason why I should not?" Nuada demanded from the door.

In one upraised hand he held the bottle of shampoo, caught after Dylan's hasty throw. She had tried to attack him. This... this filthy, ungrateful, putrescent  _human_ , whom he had saved at risk to his own life, had dared to attack him. How  _dare_ she even  _consider_  the idea?

Rage burning in his veins, he took a murderous step forward, his dark bronze eyes tinged with the color of fresh mortal blood. A thrill of satisfaction shivered up his spine as she shrank away from him, trembling.

"Tell me, human," he snarled, and felt another shuddering thrill as he saw her flinch at the thunderous sound of his voice. She hid behind the curtain of her dripping wet hair, which barely hid the whiteness of what might have been scars on her shoulders and upper chest. "Why should I not kill you here, now? You have attacked me unprovoked-"

"You scared me!" She yelped, voice fraught with panic. "I thought... I thought you were the enemy. You can't p-possibly kill me for that!"

"What enemy?" He demanded incredulously. Was she lying? Or simply daft? "There is no enemy that can defeat me, and no one can get into this sanctuary unless I invite them."

"Well, how am  _I_  supposed to know that?" The mortal demanded waspishly.

Dylan was suddenly furious. She hated feeling like a moron, but somehow the Elf in front of her was making her feel incredibly stupid for not realizing that an enchanted place like this probably couldn't be broken into without at least a lot more noise than she'd heard in the last two and a half hours. But she'd been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she'd reacted without thinking, her fight or flight instinct triggered. With nowhere to run, she'd grabbed the nearest object of any worth as a weapon and flung it as hard as she could, albeit with little accuracy.

And now that her reverie was broken, suddenly she could feel what she'd done to herself in her aborted attempt at flight. Chest and side aching dully, her breath came in shallow pants that she couldn't control. Her face, which she'd accidentally hit against the corner of the little waterfall, throbbed in tandem with her heartbeat. The cracked cheekbone burned like blue fire. She felt a trickle of wetness on her cheek, and when she wiped gingerly at it, the back of her hand came away bright red and dripping wet. Pain whispered of old terrors. Attempted to seduce her into falling back into memories. Desperately, Dylan shoved the sudden choking fear down and away, and forced herself to look at the Elf in front of her.

"Do you think a warrior such as I would have an unguarded sanctuary?" The Elf demanded, voice cracking like a whip.

Dylan allowed herself to feel the burning in her face, the ache in her ribs, and even the sting of her missing fingernail, before allowing the scream rising up in her throat to rip out with her terror-fueled fury.

"I don't know!" She yelled. "I'm  _human!_  What do I know about enchanted holes in subway walls and stuff like that? I'm a psychiatrist, not one of the Brothers Grimm! What do I know about the fae? I know a lot, but not  _that_  much. I haven't been a kid for almost twelve years! The average dog doesn't even live that long. Good grief, you're such a jerk!" Why did he have to try and make her feel so blasted inferior? Forget this crap! Fury rose up in her, sharp, hurting, black.

Then the Elf moved, a single motion, and the fury dissipated like mist in the harsh morning sun, to be replaced by ice-cold fear.

He stepped to the edge of the bath, the only thing standing between them. His eyes bored into hers like wasp stings, frosted bronze promises of pain. Her chest ached. She couldn't catch her breath.

Suddenly, he leapt. Dylan lost sight of him in the moments he was airborne.

He landed with frightening grace only a few feet away from her, taut with menace, eyes full of hatred. She couldn't stop her whimper from escaping.

Then he faltered, and fell.

He hit his knees on the rough red stone of the bathing room floor, clenching his teeth to stifle the sounds of his pain. Blood, a dark stain, spread across his tunic from belly, side, and shoulder. Tiny streams of it ran down one leg to puddle upon the floor. He clapped a hand to his chest, ducking his head so that the human before him would not see how the wounds burned and cut at him.

The Elf did not realize it – if he had, he might have forgotten his honor and killed her out of fury – but he looked as if he were bowing to her. Dylan didn't say anything about that, however. She only gasped, steeled herself to do something positively suicidal, and moved herself underneath his good arm.

"You must have ripped your stitches," the irritated woman muttered. Her head felt cobwebby from panic and the brief moments of hypoventilation. Trying to stand was making her gasp, and pain was lancing across her chest. Being so close to a male was making her heart thunder. It felt as if her sternum might crack. But surely, in his new state of injury, the Elf wouldn't harm her? Despite what she'd thrown at him? After all, it hadn't been a rock. She wouldn't have missed with a rock. Trying to suppress the quivering fear that slid through her guts by biting her tongue sharply once, she mumbled, "Come on, Your Highness, we need to get back out there."

"Why are you helping me?" He growled halfheartedly. Dizziness sucked the breath from his lungs and made him gasp.

"Same reason as yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that," she snapped, finally getting her feet under her. Her shoulder was not going to appreciate this in the morning. The Elf didn't weigh much, but now that she'd had a good soak, her bruises, aches, and pains were starting to settle in again, and new ones were coming out. Through gritted teeth, she commanded, "Now lean on me, Sire. I don't know what kind of damage you've done to your leg, so it's best not to put too much weight on it."

"I was moments away from killing you," he informed her through his own clenched teeth, baffled at her behavior. Could she have misinterpreted his intentions? Was this perhaps why she was aiding him?

"Really?" She asked, sarcasm tingeing her breathy voice. "Well, good for you. I totally had no idea that the angsty Elf prince with the blood-red eyes wanted to do me in. I thought he was kidding about axing me. Silly Dylan, what  _could_ I have been thinking of?" Dylan hated being angry, but she had to force herself to stay furious with him for frightening her, or she would become terrified and be unable to treat his wounds, frozen by her fear. She didn't have time for terror. Instead, what was needed here was sarcasm of the most acidic type – her specialty. So she shoved down the fear until it was barely a tickle, bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, and then said, "Now stop being such a baby and do what the nice doctor-lady tells you, all right?"

"Do not patronize me, human," he snarled at her as she helped him into his chair.

She ignored him. Hustling butt, she ran back into the bathing room to grab her purse. Remarkably, she found laid over the chair where her soiled clothes had been, a fresh batch of garments: a white shift, a green kirtle, and a golden rope that was probably meant as a girdle.  _I don't wanna be naked, it'll make my hands shake,_  she thought to herself, and hastily donned the shift, tying it with the rope. She'd put the over-gown on later. It wasn't necessary now.

Clutching her leather purse in trembling hands, she ran back out and dumped the contents on the floor. She grabbed spool and thread, needle and scissors, her lighter, and found gauze, bandages, masking tape, and hand sanitizer. As a child, she'd once thought this bag was magic. As an adult, she realized she just forgot to take out almost everything she ever put in there. Perhaps one item in five ever saw the light of day again.

The only reason she carried the inconvenient parcel around, she reflected almost absently, was because it had come in handy at the most remarkable moments.

"Shirt off," Dylan ordered briskly. Swiping at her face with the back of her hand when she felt a strange tickling, she glanced down to see her skin was still wet and red. Under her breath, she muttered, "Ow. Crud." Laying out everything she'd set aside on the small table, the human woman watched warily as the Elf slowly, gingerly pulled off the deep red tunic stained dark with his blood.

"Could you not find the decency to dress properly?" Nuada demanded when he caught sight of her in the plain shift and girdle. Her blue eyes leveled on him like ice, and for a moment the Elf prince felt himself frozen in place, even his thoughts stilled by the chilly gaze. There was a strange, vast emptiness behind her pale, mortal eyes that held him. A fury that was more than fury. A grief that was more than grief. A feyness that he hadn't seen in a human in thousands of years, if he'd ever seen it at all.

"Shut. Up. Your survival is far more important than how I dress, Highness. In case you didn't notice, you're bleeding, and I'm not sure why, though I have several viable theories, so let's check that out and you can eat my face off another day, all right? So I'll say it again –  _shut up_."

The woman knelt, cringing when her knee – which she'd hit against the pavement in her flight the day before – took her weight. Needles of pain shoved deep into her leg, but she ignored them. Shoving her unbound hair out of her face, she peered intently at the bullet hole above the waist of the Elven warrior's trousers. Dylan bit her lip when she saw the thin lines, angry and bright gold, running from the wound down the Elf's belly and disappearing beneath the fabric of his leggings. As she checked the stitched wounds in his arms and shoulder, she saw that they were the same – lines of a sickly golden color marred the white skin. The mortal sighed, and went through her bag again, muttering under her breath.

"Not you... not you... no, no, no... nope... ah-ha!"

Out of the bag came a jar marked with a handwritten label:  _Echinacea/Goldenseal Salve_. This seemingly remarkable item was always on her person because it helped prevent and fight infection, and she was both very clumsy (see  _prone to injury_ ) and highly sensitive to her random injuries becoming infected.

 _Not to mention, tetracycline is crazy expensive,_ she thought, and added with a touch of sarcasm,  _Blast my delicate constitution._

She also grabbed a tiny set of Q-tips (part of her portable first aid kit) and a pack of tissues. Placing those on the table as well, she carefully wiped the fresh blood from the Elf's chest. Biting her lip, she set to work. She'd have to cut the stitches already there and pull them out. The wounds were bleeding badly – she needed to figure out why.

"Okay," Dylan mumbled to the Elf, trying to ignore the way his eyes followed her movements, trying to ignore the way his hands clenched into fists. She wasn't sure if it was the pain, or the sight of her, that brought out this reaction. His face, as inscrutable as darkness, made her heart thump. "Okay, let's get started."

Then there was a long silence. Dylan was fine with that. Silence was great when you were trying to concentrate.

"What is your name?" Nuada asked when the empty silence had stretched into long minutes, perhaps even an hour. He wondered if he still frightened her. She moved with a surety that he had missed at the day's beginning, but she still refused to really look at him. The Elf had to wonder if she would even answer his question. For several moments, as she pressed her lips together and poked into the wound at his belly, she did not speak. Her eyes were focused on her bloody job, and one corner of her mouth turned downward in concentration.

"Dylan," she said abruptly. She took the metal flame-maker and flicked it open, so that the metal would heat up. "I told you that," she added.

"Your full name."

She gave him a poignant look and did not answer him, but only pulled the thread from the bleeding wound at his shoulder. The look told him much, if not all. This strange ( _and irritating,_  he snarled silently) human woman knew the power of names. Perhaps she was a reader of the old tales. It mattered little. Nuada was almost certain that without some sort of promise from him, he would get little in the way of that sort of information from her. Infuriating mortal.

If he possessed the stronger telepathic gifts his far more talented twin could claim (specifically, the ability to walk through mortal minds without being sullied by the contact), he could have simply ripped the knowledge he sought from her mind. However, he did not possess Nuala's delicate mental touch. Everything she was, he was not. Everything she claimed – the power to heal, the full magic of the Old World, their father's love – he could not. So he had to use... charm... persuasion... and other such soft methods, to learn what he wished to know. Or torture, which yielded not altogether-reliable results. Only in direst need would he attempt to pull the thoughts from a human mind. The last time he had been forced to do so, the poisonous mind had made him physically ill for days.

"Do not worry," he said tonelessly, breaking the silence that had descended after her abrupt answer. "I give my word as the crown prince of Bethmoora that I will not use the knowledge of your true name against you, nor allow any other of my kind to do so, save for your own well being or if you were to betray me." An event, the Elf prince fully believed, would not be long in coming, so the promise cost him nothing. "Now I ask again – your name, human?"

"You just said it," she growled under her breath, and plucked a thread from his flesh so deftly he barely felt it.

"What?"

"You just said it," Dylan repeated, voice tight. "Highness."

"I said only 'human.' What are you babbling about?" Nuada demanded, gritting his teeth. Would she always speak in these frustrating riddles?

"You call me 'human' as if I had no other name," she informed him, eyes like cobalt ice. She glanced at the lighter, tried to ignore the searing heat beginning to scorch her skin. "So begging Your Highness's pardon, but I'm sure as heck not going to tell you my real one."

"I..." The Elf prince gritted his teeth against the invectives he wanted to spit out. Swallowed back the curses. When he was certain he could speak without snarling (and could resist the urge to drive the razor-sharp knife the warrior always carried into that empty void where a heart should have been), Nuada said tonelessly, "I meant no offense. Will you tell me your name?"

"No." Dylan flicked her eyes to the Elf's face and back to his wound. Her fingers were starting to hurt. The metal of her lighter was becoming too hot for her comfort. It was almost ready. "And this," she muttered, "is really going to hurt. It's the only thing I can do, with what I've got to work with. The wound in your stomach won't close. I can't get the bleeding stopped."

She glanced at the hot metal and hissed at it. A droplet of saliva touched the metal and sizzled.

Nuada understood what she was going to do, and braced himself. He would not allow the human to receive enjoyment from his pain by crying out. Somehow, he did not doubt that the mortal spoke the truth about what she would do, and how needful it was.

"I am ready."

Dylan glanced at her patient, at the mouth set in a tight line, the cold eyes, the proud face, and sighed softly in exasperation. For a moment, she was reminded of her brother, John, whenever he'd been hurt as a child. Reluctantly, she said, "Myers. Dylan-Roberta Sahara Niamh Myers."

Nuada opened his mouth to speak, paused, and looked down at her.

"Niamh?"

"My uncle Thad's wife. Brace," she replied shortly, and pressed the hot metal to the skin. The Elf jerked, then stilled. His fingers bit deep into the soft wood of the chair arms. A feverish light glinted in his eyes. Dylan spoke to cover the hideous sound of sizzling flesh. With her mind drawing irritating parallels between the Elven warrior and her twin, she suddenly couldn't stop talking. "My brother John's middle name came from him. He's my mother's older twin brother. My aunt Niamh is my father's younger twin sister."

Finally, she pulled the lighter away, and waited while the Elf's harsh breathing eased. Perspiration glistened against the moon-pale skin. After several long moments, Nuada's death grip on the arms of his chair loosened and he very slowly relaxed. It took another moment for her words to penetrate the fog of agony.

"Sahara?" The Elven warrior's pain was audible in the growl of his voice. "Is that not a desert?"

"My mother," she mumbled, with a flash of her old irritation, "was a neo-hippie from Arizona who loved  _the Lion King_. And she was a bit dyslexic." Hence why Mrs. Heidi Myers had mistaken the Savannah desert for the Sahara desert.

"Dylan-Roberta?"

"My father was a Bob Dylan fan, but my mother told him he couldn't name me after someone famous, since he'd already done that to my sisters. So he snuck it in there backwards. Robert Dylan – Dylan-Roberta. My mom didn't realize what he'd done till after they took me home from the hospital. By then, it would've been too much effort to have it changed. What's your name, Your Highness?" She asked suddenly. "It's not Roiben, is it?" The corner of her mouth twitched, as if this were some sort of private joke. "Or Oberon? Airgetlam? Iubdan?"

He blinked as the pain receded further.  _Thank the gods for the healing magic in this chamber._  Yet he had not told her his name? Somehow that seemed like a grave oversight. And where had she heard the name Roiben before? He knew that name. Knew an Elf that carried it; King Roiben Darktithe. Why did she suggest it? Why would she think of any of those names?

"No," he muttered. "It is not Roiben, Oberon, Airgetlam, or Iubdan. I am a bit too tall to be Iubdan, anyway."

"Very true, Highness. So what is it?" As she moved to cauterize the other wound, the one in his shoulder that refused to close, she glanced at him, saw his eyes were like frozen pools of amber. Blue lines of pain stood out around his mouth. Dylan sighed and murmured, "You don't always have to be brave, you know."

"I am a warrior. I fear neither pain nor death. These wounds are as nothing," he said coldly. "Though the concept is not something a frail human female would ever understand."

"Men are stupid," she said, and pressed the hot metal into his skin.

The only thing that stopped him from striking her as searing agony burned in his shoulder was the tears that welled up and rolled down her cheeks. His pain truly distressed her. It made no sense. She, a human, wept for pain that he would not show to her. As he clutched at the arms of his chair and clenched his jaw against the fire ripping through him, he stared at her, focused on the diamond tears streaming down her face.

Nuada had to sit with gritted teeth for a long moment after she pulled the metal away before he could force his body to relax. Pain surged through him like some hellish and fiery tide.

Thankfully, she moved on to other wounds. These only needed to be re-stitched, as he had torn the thread from his body with his leap. As she worked, he watched her. Watched the light glittering off the tear-stained cheeks. Noticed the cool determination in her expression, and the grief in her eyes.

"I saw a demi-merrow once," she said suddenly. He blinked, the only outward sign of surprise that she could see. "Well, more than once. But the first time I saw her, she was sick. I didn't understand why at first."

Nuada glanced down at the human as she took up a pair of scissors and, without so much as a 'by your leave,' cut a huge hole in his trouser leg over the bullet wound in his thigh. It, too, had traces of amber blood-poisoning under the skin. She sighed, but continued with her story.

"I realized," she went on, and grabbed her hand-labeled jar of salve, placing it next to her, "that she came from the creek behind our house. The creek where my sisters would go with their boyfriends, goofing off and having fun. The creek where they would dump all of their trash. The creek where my oldest sister, Petra, threw her used cigarettes so my parents wouldn't catch her. My sister Victoria used to dump out all of her nail polish and her makeup so that my mother couldn't force her to dress up for my father's dinner parties. Mary used to shoot soda cans out there. If they landed in the creek, she scored points. Never mind she wasn't supposed to be using my father's gun in the first place.

"And they said  _I_  was the difficult one," she grumbled, no little bitterness in her voice.

"When I saw the demi-merrow, I realized that I had to do something. So I ratted out Mary to my dad about the gun. He locked it in the shed on a shelf too high for her to reach without climbing, and she's dead scared of heights. I ratted out Victoria to my mother. I forget what happened to her. And I ratted out Petra to our teachers one day when I knew she was smoking in the girls' bathroom. They obligingly called my parents. Then my twin brother and I cleaned up the creek."

Nuada was interested in spite of himself. He could tell by the way she spoke, by the way she moved, that she was telling the truth. As she sewed up his left arm as carefully as she could, he watched her face. There was bitterness there, and anger, but not at him. Not at anyone in the room. Her eyes glittered.

"And the demi-merrow?" Nuada could not help but inquire. He could feel tiny eyes on him and Dylan, and knew it was the little crinaeae that lived in his well, watching him, listening intently to the tale of the other water faerie.

"She survived, thank goodness. I had to nurse her back to health, which was scary. I mean, I was five years old. Anything could've gone wrong. I only knew from books the kind of thing to do – let her swim in fresh rain water, which I collected in a real glass fish tank. Plastic isn't exactly friendly to the Lords and Ladies, is it?" Dylan heaved a sigh. "I went to the dairy farm a few miles down the road and asked to have some of the milk straight from the cows, which I put in glass bottles. I didn't want to risk contamination by plastic or chemicals. I also asked the farmer for some of his wife's bread, since they use their own homemade flour and such. It was as old-school as I could get it. I even fed her with my baby spoon." At his questioning look, she elaborated, "My mother bought all of us baby silverware – knife, spoon, fork, bowl, plate, sip cup - from this place called Things Remembered when we were born. Had it engraved with our name, date of birth, whatever. Real silver. I figured silver was better than steel, and it seemed to work."

"Why silver?"

"I read in a book once where a witch had to tame a unicorn because it was lost in the human world, and the only way to take it back to the Faerie World was to tame it long enough for them to lead it back. It was a very young unicorn. One of the ways to tame it, the witches found in this book, was to shoe it, but horse shoes are made out of iron, and they didn't want to hurt it. So Granny Weatherwax, the oldest and best of the witches of that kingdom, melted down her silver tea set to make silver shoes. I figured that if it worked in a book, it might work in real life."

"Go on," he prodded when she fell silent. She was wiping away the blood caked around the cut on the back of his ankle now. "What befell the demi-merrow? You said she recovered?"

"Yes, Sire. I set it up so she could take moon baths and everything. I was only five, so I took every precaution I could think of. Even then, I knew that being young and small meant more things could go wrong for me than otherwise. It was difficult – I was grounded most of the time for doing things my parents had forbidden me to do but  _needed_  to be done, like visit Farmer Cotton down the road. He lived three mile away, and my parents said it was too far for me and my brother to walk."

"Your brother helped you?" He asked, surprised. Not only one, but  _two_ human children had saved a demi-merrow, cleaned up the human filth in her home, and nursed her back to health, for no reason? Unless there had been a reason behind it all. Perhaps they'd lusted after her magic. Even humans at that young age could be vipers.

"Yes. John always helps me when I need him. He was the only person who believed me about the merrow; he's got a bit of the Sight, but not as strong as me. I think he was besotted with her. He used to talk to her for hours. I would've been jealous, but I totally understood. After all, a merrow! And a demi one, too. John and I were both small for our age, so meeting a faerie that was small too made us feel... better about the whole thing. And we'd read so much about the merrows, and now we had found one. She was so beautiful. For years after that, I wanted to grow up to be a demi-merrow. Then I realized I'd have to shrink by quite a lot if I wanted that to happen, so I decided I wanted to be a dryad instead, except I was too fat."

"As a boy, I wanted to be a troll. I found them to be formidable warriors," Nuada murmured, almost to himself, without thinking.

Dylan giggled.

"I can't see you as a troll, living under a bridge, scaring little children, Your Highness," she said. Then he moved, a ripple of menace, and she dropped her eyes back to his ankle.  _Then again_ , she thought, suppressing of shiver of apprehension.  _Maybe I can, at that_.

"You took her back to the stream, I hope," Nuada said, his voice thick with venom. How  _dare_ she laugh at him? Had she ever seen a troll, she would not be so quick to laugh at his childhood wish. What boy, having been saved by something that loomed nearly two feet over his own father's head (antlers and all), with more muscle and temper than a team of angry draft horses, would not wish to become like his rescuer? Every time he forgot for a moment that Dylan was a disgusting mortal, she would remind him with her actions or her words.

"Yes, we did. She gave us permission to fish in the creek whenever we wanted after that, as long as we only fished for food, and not for sport. Maybe she did something, I'm not sure, but when our family fished out there, only my brother and I ever caught anything, and it was only ever enough to feed the two of us. If anyone but us tried to eat the fish, it tasted disgusting to them." At the memory, she laughed, though there was something bitter and sad in it, and it made him uneasy. "It served that lot right, I suppose. They never appreciated the beauty around them."

"And you did?" Nuada demanded, the words bit out from between clenched teeth. He had not the slightest conception under the sky why he was suddenly furious at her, but his rage was a pulsing, seething thing beneath his skin.

"I try," she said softly as she placed the final stitch, added the first dab of salve. "I always try to appreciate it. I try to teach others to do the same. That's all anyone can do." Dylan grabbed the jar with the homemade label off the table and unscrewed the lid. "This is a salve made from Echinacea and goldenseal. It's to help fight off infection. I made it myself, in my garden, under the sun. No contaminants."

"Impressive." His voice was like acid.

Dylan ignored him. Her own voice remained professional as she continued, "Your wounds are infected, no doubt from the human metal."

"No doubt," he commented sarcastically. "Your powers of deduction are incredible."

"I'm sorry, Your Highness," she whispered as she began to spread the salve on his ankle. "About the shampoo bottle. You scared me. I thought something had happened, and the men who... the men that attacked me had somehow... found me again."

He stared at her, and he knew she could feel it, the weight of his gaze, even if she couldn't see it. She had thought herself in danger from that pack of human predators? But he had slain them before her eyes. Or did she not remember? But how could she not? Despite his thought that it was impossible for her not to know, he told her, "Those humans are dead. I killed them myself."

"I know that," Dylan said, looking anywhere but at him. "Fear doesn't always make sense." Like her absolute and utter terror of the dark, and of needles, and basements... "I'm sorry. Look, can we change the subject? You never told me your name when I asked. What is it?"

"Nuada. I am Prince Nuada, Silverlance, son of King Balor-"

"Balor? The One-Armed King of Elfland? 'Hail Balor,' " she whispered suddenly, eyes alight with some half-remembered wisps of thought. " 'Great King of the Tuatha dè Danann. See the ranks of his unconquerable Golden Army! See how they parade in their glittering pride before him! His splendor is very great. He bows down all resistance.'" She noticed him glance at her in surprise, so she added with a modest shrug, "I know the speech. I read a lot. Your Highness," she added belatedly. "Wait... you're an actual  _prince?_  Of a kingdom?"

Nuada inclined his head in a regal and icy gesture he'd learned from his father. Dylan's eyes widened almost comically.

"I beg your pardon, Your Highness," she said softly. Ducked her head.

After a long moment of silence, Nuada asked, "Tell me... what do you read?"

"Legends. Myths. Fairy tales. My patients read those kinds of things as well, and it's common ground between us since they consider me to be an old lady."

Nuada barked a laugh. She? An old lady? She was a mere infant compared to most of the people he knew. And was this what they would talk about? Tales? Speeches? Childhood stories? Did that make her feel safe to be around him? Did that make it easier for her to deal with him? She seemed so skittish and yet... he had known women who'd tried to slit their own throats for less than what she had been through.

As she spread the salve on his wounds, he listened to her talk of tales, books. It was interesting, seeing as how he had not picked up anything other than research volumes (and a rare book of poetry, in capitulation to his twin) in several centuries. Things certainly had changed in the last few hundred years. The last time he'd talked of literature, it had been with Nuala, who loved books as dearly as he loved to piece together intricate bits of goblin-mechanics or work with his carving knife or at his forge. How odd, to find himself discussing something Nuala treasured with a mortal he could never trust.

But the longer they conversed, the less reserved she became. Without the thick tension permeating the air, the healing magic of the sanctuary was allowed to work much more speedily. His wounds, sustained only a few days ago, seemed to have gained more than a week of healing – those that weren't infected or had been ripped open. They hurt, fiercely, but he no longer felt so exhausted, so shaky.

He would have wagered the same about the human, though he was surprised that she hadn't yet wept wildly or gone into hysterics since her attack. While the healing sanctuary's magic affected the mind as well as the body, it was to a much lesser extent. Nuada eyed the human, sudden unease churning in his stomach. Why  _hadn't_  she broken yet? Was she shoving down her emotional response to the attack?

 _It matters little enough to me what she does,_  he reminded himself.  _She is a human. I care not if she weeps or does not weep. Let her do as she pleases, so long as she remembers her place._

When Dylan was finished tending his wounds, she carefully washed away the dried blood from the reopened cut on her broken cheek and added a bit of the salve. Then she put all of her things away in her bag. She had to fight to stifle a yawn.

"If it wouldn't kill you, Your Highness, I'd suggest a hospital for both of us, but I know better."

"Your wounds," he demanded suddenly. His voice was harsh. "They pain you. Do you... need anything?"

"No," she replied, too quickly. "No, thank you. I just need to sleep. Being in water for a long time always tires me out, not to mention that took... what? Six hours?" With a wry twist of her lips she added, "Quit moving around so much, Your Highness, you're going to kill yourself."

"We both require some rest." After a second of thought, he added gruffly, "You will take the bed. I will take the floor." Last night, he had simply waited until she slept to move her to the bed. This time, he would save himself the trouble. And this way he would not have to contaminate himself with her mortal stink again.

"But you just had basically major surgery! Again! While you were awake!" She cried. "Are you nuts?"

"It is," he told her firmly, "the chivalrous thing to do." Although the idea of honor or chivalry applying to a human revolted him. He thought of chivalry, of valor, and wondered if his posterior would appreciate his gallantry in the morning.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References Made In This Chapter:  
> \- I know from personal experience that running around naked if your breasts are bigger than a B is painful. Not to mention, bare breasts in a fight can be a real inconvenience (esp. if the sight of them fails to strike your opponent dumb, which is what they were used for in the film the Whole Nine Yards).  
> \- The thing about Nuada's eyes being like wasp stings is actually an homage to the fairy queen in the book The Fairy Rebel, by Lynne Reid-Banks.  
> \- Nuada's insistence on doing things that damage his already damaged body is inspired by Dr. Gregory House in the last episode of season 2. It's amazing, the parallels you can draw between men of different species simply from their stupidity.  
> \- The bag Dylan carries is the bastard child of a bag my editor used to have, one she gave to me, and one my cousin carries. The size is from mine, the color and style is from my editor, and the vast extent of the contents is from my cousin (who carries the most random things in her purse, including gauze, medical tape, etc).  
> \- "This is really going to hurt" is from the movie Hook, with Robin Williams. Capt. Hook says it to Jack right before he attempts to pierce the kid's ear with his hook.  
> \- Niamh is a character in Irish myth, but she's also the mother of the main character of Daughter of the Forest, the sister of the main character in Son of the Shadows, and both mother and daughter of the main character in Child of the Prophecy, all by Juliet Marillier.  
> \- The concept of twins marrying twins is from Anne of Ingleside (or the one before it, I'm not sure) by LM Montgomery. And I've always wondered, if you have two sets of identical twins marry and have children, how similar will the kids look? That's going to be answered in this story, even though the twins that married aren't identical.  
> \- I think I said Dylan's named after Bob Dylan, but just in case I didn't, she's named after Bob Dylan.  
> \- Roiben is the main male character (alongside Corny) in Holly Black's Tithe, and the King of the Unseelie Fae in her sequels, Valiant and Ironside.  
> \- Oberon is the King of the fairies in the Shakespearean play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, the cartoon Gargoyles, and the movie, the Voyage of the Unicorn. They appear in other things (Raymond E. Feist's Faery Tale, for example) but those three are the big ones in my life.  
> \- Airgetlam (or argetlam) is a Gaelic epithet that means "Silverhand or Silver-Arm." Christopher Paolini did not invent this term (hack writer). It is actually a term that applies to the character Nuada in Irish myth because in mythology, Nuada gets his arm hacked off and gets it replaced by a silver one.  
> \- Iubdan is the Irish version of Tom Thumb, which is funny, because Nuada's like, six-foot-one. It is also the nickname of the MC's dad in Son of the Shadows, whose real name is Hugh. They call him this because he is in fact so very tall.  
> \- Yes, the phrase "I fear neither pain nor death" is a rehash of Eowyn's line from the Two Towers. I like that line. It's very... Nuada. His mindset is "must be tough, can't let the human see I have feelings and nerve endings and can be hurt by burning hot metal." Which is stupid, but what can you do.  
> \- The sick demi-merrow in the polluted stream was inspired by Spirited Away, where the main character meets what they think is a stink sprite, but it turns out to be a river spirit who's river in full of junk. They even pull a bike out of the poor thing. It's pretty gross. But it shows how polluted his river is. When he comes in, he's basically a living pile of brown slime the size of three stacked cars. When they finish cleaning him, he's a bunch of crystal-clear water and a wooden mask (and a bit smaller).  
> \- Farmer Cotton is the name of Rosie Cotton's father (the Hobbit girl who married Sam Gamgee in the Return of the King).  
> \- The book with the unicorn wearing silver shoes is called Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchet. "Lords and Ladies" is another general term for faeries.  
> \- In this book I read, the Faeries' Oracle, it said that moonlight is the element of the fae. In the Young Wizards series, and in Wicca, things allowed to soak up moonlight tend to retain power. I mixed the two concepts and took the healing power of moonlight from A Swiftly Tilting Planet and smushed them all together to come up with the idea of the healing moon baths.  
> \- Dylan's desire to be a demi-merrow/dryad was inspired by my childhood wish to grow up to be a vampiress.  
> \- The speech that Dylan recites about Balor is a rehash of a speech about the real Balor of Irish myth made by the cat-bard Princess Tualha in the book A Wizard Abroad by Diane Duane.  
> \- I forget where I heard it, but in some movie, a kid was in this crappy situation and his only comment was, "Chivalry sucks." This inspired the last line of the chapter.


	6. In the Insomniac Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the dark of the night, upon waking from sleep, Dylan's pain becomes too much and she finally snaps and lashes out at Nuada, only to trigger flashbacks to both their haunted pasts...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter contains PTSD flashbacks of torture, medically sanctioned shock-therapy, being medicated against the patient's will, murder, rape, deliberate starvation and dehydration, racism, war, and genocide. This chapter also features a very heated argument with lots of shouting.

** A Short Tale of an Old Experience, Another Tale From Dylan's Childhood, a War of Words, a Meeting of Memories, and an Offering of Peace **

.

.

Seven nights later, Nuada fell asleep watching the even rise and fall of Dylan's chest as she breathed. Her eyes were closed, but he wasn't certain she was sleeping. Except when lulled by the magic in the bathing chamber, the Elf prince had not seen the mortal sleep scarcely at all until now. Nearly nine days without any true rest... But then, who could sleep, after what she had been through? Men had ripped away her innocence, attacked her, beaten her, raped her, nearly killed her. Now she was in a strange place; perhaps even, to her, a lonely place. In a strange bed, alone with a strange male she had never met, who spoke of killing her as if it were nothing, yet who needed her care.

Ugh, the very thought of him needing her left a bitter taste in Nuada's mouth. This mortal, who dared to defy him, who dared to force oaths from him, now lay curled upon the lone bed in his sanctuary, huddled beneath the golden quilt his mother had made for him before her death. Part of him wanted to hate her. The rest of him merely wanted the complication of her gone from his life.

The Elf prince had never known a human like Dylan. Instead of being uncaring, lazy, and hateful, she was seemingly compassionate, industrious, and careful. She had spent the majority of the time not required for stitching his wounds in such domestic tasks as sewing up the tears and holes in his clothing. His boot, the one that had received the slice from the human wolf's blade, had also been carefully sewn closed, with stitches so small and neat the prince felt almost as if he were looking at a noblelady's embroidery instead of a mended piece of leather. The mortal had taken the time to wash his soiled and bloodstained clothes while he slept off the blood-loss-induced exhaustion. He'd awoken to find them laid out across the chairs and trunks to dry. Using the flat lid of a rectangular trunk, the human had set up a little first-aid station, with scissors, thread, salve, bandages, and other items laid out neatly for easy access. The bloodstains had been cleaned from the mat and the stone floor. Finally, the fireplace had been swept clean and washed, the stones no longer soot-black but pale white, the grate now gleaming silver.

The sylph from the bathing chamber informed the prince that the strange mortal woman had quietly and politely requested the means to clean up the mess she had made in the prince's sanctuary. Though lacking the intriguing rhymes the little elementals preferred, the human was so nice and so polite that they had decided to see what she would do with the things she'd asked for. Sure enough, this human had cleaned up the bathing room and the main chamber.

_ The human _ , the sylph tinkled at Nuada. Her voice chimed like bells. Only someone well versed in the languages of the fae would have been able to understand her.  _She weep much, long time. Try not to, but can't help. Her pain, very bad. Cleaning help. She smile then. Sometimes sing._

"Indeed?"

_ Yes. Pretty. Like child. But soft. _

Dylan sang. Interesting. He must have been far more exhausted than he'd imagined, if the sound of it hadn't woken him. And what humans sang nowadays? True, the wretched mortals had something they  _claimed_  to be music, but anything with functioning ears knew it for what it truly was – human garbage. For the sylph to say Dylan sang... well, what did she sing? What music could the human possibly know that would justify the little fairy's compliment?

And to say she sang like a child... children did  _not_ sing well. So what did that mean?

Nuada watched the human curl up tighter on the bed, shivering. If she had been anything other than what she was (and had he been anything but what and who  _he_ was), he supposed he might have fetched another blanket for her. If she had been one of his people, and not a mortal, he was certain he would have.

The Elf did not move. He merely watched the human woman, and pondered her.

This strange human was young, perhaps thirty - Nuada was no connoisseur of mortal ages, but she could not be much older than thirty-five; an infant compared to the prince, who had lived for over four millennia. This young mortal, one of the wretched progeny of Adam, should have betrayed her bad blood in some way by this time. Running away, perhaps, or attacking him. Stealing one of his weapons, maybe, to pawn for paltry coin. Even simply indulging in slothfulness.

But no. Dylan remained in the sanctuary, seeking only to aid him in any way. She completely defied every concept he had formulated over the years about her kind. He watched her, and waited, wary of some sort of trick. Part of him wondered still when she would betray him. And yet... and yet.

Frustrated with the turn his thoughts had taken – to consider this mortal less than a threat was ludicrous! He was beginning to sound as mad as she! As beguiled as his father and sister had become by the promises of men – he swiftly drew his mind to a different track, something trivial and inconsequential.

What sort of name for a woman was Dylan? Something more feminine was more suitable. And that ridiculous other name – Roberta. A human name, and decidedly British sounding. Sahara – that barren, desert waste. That did not fit the mortal, either. Nor did Niamh, though it was a good name. None of those names fit the human who had inexplicably saved his life.

The prince thought of the ladies of Bethmoora's court and other courts that he knew or remembered; allowed their names to fit through his mind. Ailís, Jocasta, Sorcha, Líle, Boann, Iselle, Eilonwy, Pádraigín, Gráinne, Iúile, Siobhan, Liadan, Maev. Yes, even Niamh... and Nuala. His precious, beloved Nuala.  _Her_  name fit her like a silk glove, but the human's...

Dylan-Roberta Sahara Niamh Myers. No, it didn't fit the provoking, enraging, impossible human woman.

Nuada did not mean to, but the exhausted Elf fell asleep in his chair as he thought of how foolish humans were in the naming of their children. He fell asleep listening to Dylan breathe, a soft sigh like the wind in the trees, the only other sound in the chamber besides the crackling fire and his own pulse. It had been a long time since he'd had that experience. Not since the last night of his last visit to Bethmoora, to Findias, listening to the shushing lullaby of his sister's breathing.

As he drifted off into slumber, his perception shifted, driven by his slowing thoughts, and Nuada was almost sure he could feel the rise and fall of Nuala's breast as she breathed, far away in Bethmoora's new capital city.

**. **

The Elf prince awoke to the sound of sobbing.

Instantly awake and alert, he stretched out with his senses, trying to catch any signs of intruders in his sanctuary. How they might have entered without his knowledge, he knew not, but he  _did_  know that caution was often the better part of valor. When he heard nothing but quiet weeping, smelled nothing but the scents he had grown accustomed to in the nine days Dylan had resided in the sanctuary, the blond warrior allowed himself to open his eyes and slowly, carefully scan the room.

The fire that he had built up before falling asleep glowed red and sullen in the fireplace, only embers now. Even in the near-darkness, his keen eyes saw the empty bed where the mortal woman had recently slept. And silhouetted against the angry glow of the coals was a hunched figure, crying quietly, rocking slowly back and forth as if trying to comfort herself. Nuada thought briefly about telling her that he was awake, but decided against it. He didn't want to intrude on her pain, didn't want to deal with a mortal's tears.

_ And _ , a voice whispered in the back of the Elf's mind, cruel in its honesty,  _you do not want to see a frightened woman cringe from you, human or not, mighty warrior._

_ I care not if she behaves as a coward towards me. She is a human – what else can one expect? _

Again, as before, the situation was taken out of his hands.

In a quiet lull between her sobs, the human's voice came out in a broken, wretched whisper. "I know you're awake. You don't have to pretend."

"I have no reason to pretend," Nuada said softly, voice like ice, and began to rise slowly to his feet, though pain lanced through his thigh and ankle. Anger lent him strength. Helped him to ignore the sharp slicing burn.

How  _dare_  she spurn his kindnesses? He had no reason to even let her live, and he had saved her, clothed her, fed her, given her a bed, given her sanctuary. Now this pathetic, weeping girl had the gall to spit his courtesies back in his face? How was it that every time he thought to do her a kindness, tried to forget the putrid human blood in her veins, she wrenched his memory back to the fact that she was as lowly as the filthiest mud, and never to be trusted?

Voice dripping frigid venom, he continued, "I thought only to spare you embarrassment, as you seemingly despise your own weakness. I see now that courtesy is wasted on humans, even one such as yourself. What are humans, after all, but hollow, greedy, lustful, vicious creatures? Slothful, cruel, and hateful? And with no thought for anyone but themselves? No heart. No soul. No feelings-"

Dylan looked at him then, her face stricken, and it was as if she had struck him. There was more than rage there. It was... nameless, a conglomeration of pain and grief and incredulous anger. She opened her mouth, and poison poured out, black and thick and choking.

"How dare you? How  _dare_ you!  _I_  have no feelings? You disgusting  _toad!_  You, O Prince of Elves, seem to have the feelings of an animal! How dare you talk to me about how humans are? Mortals are the enemies of your kind – that you've made super clear. I got it, you hate me, I heard you the first time! But don't you dare lump me in with those monsters who have, through their negligence and stupidity and plain uncaring, decimated your people, thrown them back into the shadows. Don't you dare! Don't even dare! You have no  _idea_ what I have suffered to defend your kind. What people I care about have suffered! How dare you speak to me like that? You pompous little pri-"

"Suffer?  _Suffer?"_

He was suddenly on his feet, his face twisted with fury. A cold light glittered in his eyes, so at odds with the heat in his voice. Without even a thought, he reached for his twin-dagger, which lay in its sheath upon the table. The Elf drew the blade from the leather sheath, allowing the dim light to catch blood-red on the pain bright metal. He relished the shimmer of fear beneath the rage burning in that mortal gaze. Welcomed the thrill, the sudden lust for blood and battle, when the human shrank back a little.

"You wish to speak of suffering? You mortals, you are always so selfish! It is all about you! Everything is always centered around  _you!_  Well, I have some news for you, human! My people have suffered! Your kind broke the treaty with  _us!_ And because we know honor, because we know justice, because we refuse to break our vows, our oaths, your kind has forced us into the twilight of the world, to the very edge of darkness, when  _we_  are the ones whose task it is to protect and care for this world."

He took a step toward her, and noted with some surprise that she didn't back any further away from him. Her face, splotched with dark bruising, was flushed with anger where otherwise pale flesh would have been. That scarlet outrage and the tears glimmering in her eyes flooded his veins with an answering wrath. How dare she look him in the eye and try to garner his sympathy with her pathetic mortal tears?

"You wretched mortal!  _We_ suffer! We are locked away in the minds of mortals, fading away, dying, because of the disgusting, wretched  _humans!"_

"You think I don't  _know_ that?" She yelled, struggling to rise to her feet. Old hurt was flaring up beneath her skin, making her body burn.

Later, she'd probably be horrified – not to mention retrospectively terrified of repercussions – of what she'd said and done. But right then, she was so achingly furious. All she could do was scream at him. Her throat burned with things long locked away. Fury and grief scorched her. Blood dripped from her hands where her nails sliced the skin. Images flashed behind her eyes, drowning her in pain. Blood, so much blood. Hurt and death. Betrayal, and darkness...

"I  _know_ the Fae are dying!" Dylan shrieked. Her own voice cut at the inside of her throat. "I've seen it! I've suffered for it!"

"Liar! Filthy human liar-"

" _Shut up!_  You don't know what you're talking about! My parents had me locked up for  _eleven years_ , thinking I was insane, because I tried to keep your kind safe from humans! Humans like me!"

Tears were streaking down her cheeks now, burning in her cuts, but the tears were tinged with the taste of rage, not grief. She could grieve over her ancient, half-healed soul wounds later. Right now, her anger pulsed in her blood. Copper washed over her taste buds. Crimson flooded her vision. Dylan was drowning in memory, in blood, in midnight black hate. Looking into eyes like twin pools of scarlet-tinged molten bronze, predator eyes full of an answering hate, she let herself scream. For the first time in a very long time, she spat out all the poison in her memory. She smashed Nuada with it, tried to scald him with it, hurt him, hating him.

"Do you know what they used to  _do_ to children in mental institutions? Do you have  _any_ idea? I was seven years old! They electrocuted me!" Dylan screamed. Her skin itched with memory and her eyes blanked to phantasms –

–  _Pain_  
_Heat pain burning her skin_ __  
_White lights flashing in her eyes blinding blinding_  
_Flash bulb photo pain_  
_Only a second lasts forever_  
_Sizzle sizzle burning flesh burning_  
_Hurts hurts please can't move hurts_  
__So much pain... –

The Elf warrior stared at the mortal woman in front of him. His eyes took in her white shift and green kirtle, the golden sash tied loosely around her waist. She looked like one of his people in those clothes. He saw her hands, white with pain and red with blood, and her eyes, her oh so mortal eyes, wet with grief, and flecked with gold. The bright red face, shadowed with darkness and bruises, flared like a beacon. Nuada stared at Dylan, and saw the world through a crimson haze. Her words struck him like blows. The betrayal in her voice and the hatred boiling in his blood were knife blades in his belly.

Nuada's eyes burned like fire, but Dylan did not back down.

"They beat me!" The mortal shouted. Her lips were wet with blood. A stream of red trickled unheeded down her chin from where she'd bitten her lip. Those words, like a hammer, smashed through to the blond warrior's memory –

–  _Pain_  
_Fists that struck because he would not surrender_ __  
_Could not Nuala could not had to save her_  
_Kicking punching fighting_  
_Mother!_  Mother!  
_Screaming blood tears blood_ __  
_Nuala!_  
_Cracking pain taste blood copper fear pain_  
_Can't breathe can't see can't move_  
_Mother screaming begging_  
_"Not my children!"_  
__Nuala... –

"They locked me away in the dark!" Dylan wailed, the fear surging forward into her voice again, twisting it until she was sobbing with the old terror. Shaking violently, she wrapped her arms around herself and bit the inside of her cheek. Fire flared, blue and wicked hot. Pain rocked her. She fell like a sleepy child into its arms, allowing it to sweep over her. It fed the fire, and anchored her as the storm swept through her mind –

–  _Alone_  
_Darkness choking_ __  
_Heart thumping alone alone dark fear_  
_No time no space no sound_  
_Timelessness and terror_  
_Scratching at the walls_ __  
_Worse when the straitjacket holds her prisoner_  
_So dark_  
_This empty room full of nightmares_  
_Alone_  
_Screaming_  
_"Let me out! Let me out! I'm scared!"_  
__Weeping but no one comes...  
Alone! –

"They starved me!" The human wailed this at him. There was staggering pain in the words, swirling in the room. It scorched the air. Knifed through him like a blade of burning cold ice. And Nuada remembered, couldn't  _not_  remember –

_ \- Days in a cell no bigger than a large box _ __  
_Heat blistering sweat dripping_   
_Thirsty so thirsty_  
_Tongue like sand in his parchment mouth_  
_"Where will the next strike occur?"_  
_Hunger_  
_Belly aching crying out_  
_Bread please a crust of bread_  
_"Tell us what we want to know, Elf..."_  
_A sip of water please_  
_Fresh, clean, sweet water_  
_Thirsty so very thirsty_  
_"Tell us what we want to know..."_  
_Water please_  
_"Tell us..."_  
_Water..._  
_"Tell us..."_  
__Please give me some water... –

"They forced me to take medication!"  _This_. Dylan shuddered as memory called to her. Shivered. This was what was nearly the worst. Not quite the worst but nearly, so nearly. The medicine. Thorazine. Lithium. Succinylcholine. Diazepam. Vesprin. Navane. So much poison pumped into her body over and over again, for  _years._  If she didn't take the pills, they drugged her food. Ashes in her mouth. If she didn't eat, they tried to force feed her. Drowning in poison slop. If she fought them, they strapped her to a bed. Trapped, trapped like a rat. They strapped her down and stabbed her with needles full of hypodermic lies –

–  _Prick_  
_Opium whispers in the blood_ __  
_Smothering her can't breathe can't think_  
_Thorazine poison in the vein_ __  
_Lost in the mist_  
_Running running can't think_  
_Where's the music the memory?_  
_John, John, can't remember_  
_Where is John?_  
_Who is John?_  
_The fairies, the fairies, they..._  
_No fairies_  
_But I know the_  
_No fairies no fairies no fairies_  
_John_  
_I do believe in fairies_  
_Help me, John! Help me!_  
_Who is John?_  
_No fairies_  
_John, where are you? Where am I?_  
Who  __am I? –

"They r-" She began, but swallowed the words blistering her throat and spat out others before memory she couldn't bear, memory she refused to let sink into her brain, tried to return and bring the old nightmares back. "My parents betrayed me! They locked me up and shut me away because I kept insisting that there were faeries in our yard and in the creek behind our house who needed help because there was trash and stuff in our yard that was killing the plants and polluting the water and  _no one would listen to me!_ "

She screamed that last, rushing it together so that it sounded like, " _Nonud lissenamee!_ " But Nuada, stunned by her revelation, by the pain in her face, the pain that gave truth to her words, understood her perfectly. He found his voice as she sank trembling to the ground, unable to stand any longer.

"You..."

Dylan hid her face in her trembling hands. Her body tried desperately to shake apart. The room pulsed with the psychic tendrils of ice-cold soul pain. Only one of royal blood could have tasted that pain on the air... but he could. It sickened him because something in him recognized that soul pain for what it was, almost seemed to resonate with it. Something that he'd kept banked for more than three thousand years.

"Your parents..." The Elf prince breathed, and had to reign in his rage and the sudden sickness roiling in his stomach with an iron grip. Had to force down the brutal memories he could not allow to surface right now. "They imprisoned you, tortured you, because... you told them..."

Nuada trailed off, staring at her hunched, shivering form. He realized suddenly that it was freezing in the chamber.

Almost as if the shouting match had never happened, he moved to the fireplace and began building up the fire again. He could not look at her. It was not that he felt ashamed. Never that, never because of a human. Nuada did not feel shame or awkwardness now. He was... pole-axed. Completely pole-axed. The human had totally and completely confused him. What mortal would weather the things she had suffered for his kind? It made no sense. Dylan owed him  _nothing_. She owed none of them anything and yet he knew she was not lying; he could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice. Feel it in the air. This was a woman who braved death to save an Elf, who fought a warrior in order to force him to care for himself, and had suffered eleven years of imprisonment and torture for a people not her own. She was mortal, human, but such loyalty, such honor...

She made absolutely  _no_ sense! She was driving him mad! Somewhere in all of this was a trick, he knew it. There was something, there  _had_  to be. No human did these things simply out of the goodness of their heart! Perhaps she was a changeling. Or maybe brown-blooded, with the old earth magic of the brownies and hobs in her veins from long ago. But this woman could not be a human. Her blood could not be poisoned by mortal filth. There was no possible way.

"I do believe in faeries," she half-chanted, tears streaming down her face. She pulled away from him when he shifted closer, hid her face from his sight. She trembled so hard Nuada thought that at any moment she might shake apart. "I do, I do. I do believe in faeries, I do, I do."

She struggled for breath, trying not to remember. Her chest burned. Like a leaf in a gale, she trembled, hiding her face behind the wall of her hands. Pretend, that's what Dylan had to do. Pretend that there was nothing there, nothing but the wall of her hands and the smell of her own breath. Nothing, except the sound of her heart and the heat of her body. Taste the air. Feel the flames. No pain, no memory. Hold onto the moment like a lifeline. Hold on. Hold on. Stay hidden. Don't fall into the past. Hold on.

Dylan shifted so that her hair hung in her face, and she pulled her hands against her heart. The breath in her lungs rattled like death. Nuada shuddered at the sound. The sight of that curtain of brown curls vexed him. He wanted a clear view of her face, wanted to see the emotions etching themselves there for everyone to see. In a moment, he was kneeling in front of her, one hand extended towards her. She was still rocking, still blind to her surroundings, still whispering her chant, the soft, droning croon that had sustained her for the eleven years they had kept her locked up in that hellish place. "I do believe in fairies, I do, I  _do_..."

The Elf caught a single lock of hair between index and middle finger, a strand that hung just in front of one closed, darkly shadowed eye. Blue eyes flew open. The mortal sucked in a breath and froze. Her absolute fear screamed at him. Nauseated him. Nuada made rash promises to the Fates and the stars to keep from being sick. If he so much as twitched the wrong way, he knew she would attack him, not as a human against one of the fey, but simply as a woman against a man she thought would hurt her.

This close to her skin, her hair, the scent of his own blood and the putrid scorching stink of iron no longer clouding the air, he smelled her humanity, her mortal blood. The stench of it almost burned his nostrils. His fury flared like white fire, tempered only by his confusion and the way her pain resonated within him.

The Elf prince could not reconcile the child he imagined in his mind, fighting the only way she knew how to protect a race not her own, with his image of human beings. No human would do these things for his kind. Mortals, monstrous and cruel and evil, did not  _do_ such things. The hearts of the Children of Mud were black pits filled with nothing but rot and greed, incapable of honor, valor, compassion, kindness. No mortal would suffer for his kind.

And yet... yet Dylan still bore the scars. Both on her body (he'd seen flashes of them the night he'd barged into the bathing chamber) and in her mind, on her heart - on her soul. The soul she should not have possessed. He could feel anguish pouring off of her body in waves. Trembling, weeping, keening, rocking... her grief tasted to him like ashes.

"I'm sorry," she said suddenly, her voice strangely empty, and she took a shuddering breath, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes. A soft sound, like a whimper, touched her lips, but that was all. He could practically see her building up her walls, fighting back her pain, ignoring her wounds. She was afraid, he realized. Afraid to allow herself to feel pain, grief, the hurt of her family's betrayal, the horror of whatever torments had been inflicted on her as a child. Nuada watched her as she slowly regained her composure. That strange sense of her emotions, the taste of her pain, slowly dissipated, leaving him with nothing but a pervading uneasiness.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness," Dylan repeated dully. Her eyes were almost glassy, her face oddly blank. "It was just... the bed was thin - not that I mind," she added hastily. "It just reminded me of... and the fire began to die and I... I... I'm afraid of the dark."

At that point, her voice cracked.

This was a fear he knew very well. Nuala had always been terrified of the darkness as a child. How many nights had she stolen into his room when they were children, frightened of the shadows, to curl up in his arms and sleep, knowing he protected her? The comparison between this dark-haired, blue-eyed mortal and his flaxen-haired, amber-eyed sister made him feel strangely, distantly protective. But his twin had never been a victim of such depraved brutality. The Elf had no idea how Dylan would react if he tried to hold her as he had held his sister in her fear.

Not that he would. Some things were simply too vile to contemplate.

Yet he had never felt like such a monster than at that moment as Dylan looked around almost helplessly, trying not to catch his eye. She was not merely afraid of the dark. Empty now of at least her anger, she was shaking with what he could only assume was fear of him. She had, after all, just screamed like a harpy at an Elf prince who loathed her entire race and wished her dead. An Elf prince whose only reason for leaving her alive was so intangible a thing as a debt of honor.

Seeing the obvious terror in her eyes, smelling it on the air, Nuada felt like a beast.

"You... need not be afraid," he muttered falteringly. Now the Elf regretted his harshness, his claim that she had no feelings, the things he'd shouted at her. He could have said worse things. Far worse things. The prince knew that. But what had passed his lips was bad enough. And now that he saw her grief over his people and her fear of him... now that he knew her... he was almost ashamed. Almost, but not quite. Still... it was enough to make him attempt gentility.

"Come. Sit at the table," he said, trying to be gentle, and held out his hand to her. She flinched away. Silently, the prince cursed. This was all he could think to do to make amends. Like trying to coax a skittish horse, he waited patiently for her to accept him.

Dylan took the proffered hand with no little hesitation. Her face, blank as a doll's, looked as if it might crack. She rose slowly. The room was having an effect on her injuries as well. The last few nights of broken half-sleep had given her enough energy to speed the healing from the room. Perhaps a full two month, maybe two and a half, in this room, and she would be - physically, at least - as good as new.

As for her heart... he knew not. He could only be kind - an art long lost to him in his years of exile, and hard to relearn in a mortal's presence. But he led her carefully to the table. Dredging up ancient court manners from years ago, he pulled a chair out for her and helped her to scoot in. She thanked him quietly. Her voice trembled.

So did he. Nuada's entire body, drained by his rage, shook with fatigue, but he could not sleep with her so frightened of him. His honor demanded he make reparations. After all, she had done nothing but give him aid. Look at what he had done to her in return for her kindness. The Elf prince stared at her across the table. She huddled in the chair, hiding behind her curls. Clenching his fists, the Elf cast around for something to do, something to say.

_ Your honor is a flimsy thing, Prince Nuada, _  his inner voice snarled at him.  _It allows you to take pride and pleasure in battle, and_   _prevents you from anything other than slaying your enemies outright. No unnecessary torture. No rapine. Yet that same honor does not prevent you from terrorizing a brutalized young woman. Her breeding makes her an acceptable target for your rage, does it not? A filthy human, a mortal, a proud and hollow nothing-creature –_

_ Be silent!  _ He snarled at himself. The voice fell quiet. The Elf warrior sighed imperceptibly and returned to looking at the mortal woman.

They sat in interminable silence until he could bear it no longer.

"Are you hungry?" He asked softly. "Thirsty?"

She shook her head.

"Tired, perhaps?" Another negation. "You do not wish to return to bed?"

At this, Dylan's face blanched and she glanced at him fearfully before looking hastily away. He bit back a sigh of frustration. What did the Elf Prince of Bethmoora know about making polite small talk? With a human of all creatures? What could he say to break the brittle tension between them? Why would this blasted, gods-cursed, frustrating mortal not aid him in trying to be kind to her?

"No, thank you. You should go to bed, Your Highness," the mortal murmured listlessly, staring into the flames. "You need your rest."

And she laid her head down on her arms upon the table and closed her eyes, shifting to hide her face behind her hair. Despite the seemingly casual pose, Nuada could see the tension knotting her shoulders. Was she waiting for him to hurt her? He wanted to feel furious with her at the idea, but it only served to prick his conscience.

Nuada tried to stay awake until he was certain that Dylan slept, so that he could lay her in the more comfortable bed again as chivalry (unfortunately) demanded, but his body and mind shuddered with exhaustion, and he unwillingly succumbed to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References Made In This Chapter:  
> \- The quilt from Nuada's mother was inspired by the short story, "Swans," by Kelly Link. In that story, the main character's mother made all seven of her brothers and the main character a quilt, but the main character's quilt was not finished before her mother died. The whole quilt from the dead mother was a nice bit, so I wanted it.  
> \- The way Dylan cleaned everything up is heavily inspired by the movie Disney's Enchanted. I love the Happy Working Song scene! But the fact that she finds it soothing is from the movie For Rich or For Poor (I think that's what it's called). In that movie, Kirstie Alley's character is sobbing and talking to this Amish woman, and then the Amish woman says, "Now, let's go scrub the floors!" And KA's character gushes, "Oh, could we?"  
> \- The sylph's voice tinkling like bells is inspired by Tinkerbell as described in the original Peter Pan.  
> \- "I know you're awake. You don't have to pretend" is a rehash of the line "I know you're there. You can come out" from the episode "Once Upon a Time in New York" from Beauty and the Beast.  
> \- A child being locked up for telling tales of fairies, dragons, unicorns, etc. is from Anne Bishop's Dark Jewels series.  
> \- I first saw electro-shock therapy being used on children in the movie Return to Oz (based on book 3 in the Oz series, Ozma of Oz). They never actually DID it, but the threat was there.  
> \- The thing about being locked in the dark is both an experience from my life and draws on Tenchi in Tokyo, where the young villain is sealed away in the dark. It traumatized her so badly that thousands of years later, it still freaked her out.  
> \- "I do believe in fairies; I do, I do!" is from the live-action movie, Peter Pan, when Tinkerbell dies and Peter tries to bring her back (if you believe in fairies, clap your hands! Do it!... you're not clapping).  
> \- The comparisons between Nuala and Dylan... are important. That's all I can say. They've been in since chapter one, but just in case you missed them, they're there. And they are important. So yeah.


	7. Many Nights Gone By...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Needing some space, Nuada ventures out of the sanctuary, leaving Dylan to fend for herself for a few hours. While out, he runs into an old friend and an old enemy...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a detailed depiction of an infected wound; mentions of consensual sexual intimacy; tangential mentions of the gorier, darker origins of many modern fairy tales; themes of mental illness - specifically depression and PTSD; mentions of rape; PTSD flashbacks; mentions of emotional parental abuse; and mentions of war, politics, and racism.

** A Short Tale of Absences, Friends and Enemies, Dylan's Words, New Blood, and the Beginnings of a Truce **

.

.

Nuada jerked awake with a start. Whispers of dreams clung stubbornly to his brain. Rubbing the heels of his palms against his eyes to brush away the cobwebs of sleep, the Elf stretched, spine cracking as his back arched. He sat up slowly, mindful of the tightness in his limbs and the dull ache in his body. Pale amber eyes alighted on the chair that the human had fallen asleep in the night before. He knew without being told that the day had slipped away and night had fallen across the world above.

Without meaning to, the warrior had fallen asleep near dusk, exhausted from the day and the sickness spreading through his body from his wounds. The mortal had watched him practice with his gleaming silver blades all the day, pursing her lips but saying nothing, eying him with disapproval, reminding him so strongly of Nuala as a child that he'd almost smiled. The fair-haired fae knew she was concerned that he would do himself harm, but he'd been unworried. He knew how far he could push his body.

Or so he had thought.

Without realizing it, however, he'd managed to exhaust himself, and had fallen asleep upon his bed for the seventh day in a row without meaning to. Even as the thought crossed his mind, Nuada realized that there was an extra bedcloth draped over him. He had fallen asleep atop the golden quilt. Now he lay beneath a thin cotton blanket. Puzzled, he looked around for Dylan, to see if she could account for this. Somehow, the Elf prince knew the mortal woman was responsible.

He did not see her.

Getting to his feet, the Elf lord stifled his groans as stiff muscles protested. He scouted the room, in case Dylan was hiding, perhaps frightened of him now that he was awake. All the past day, and the six days prior to that, even as she cast him furtive, irritated looks, she had made a point to stay far away from him. As far as possible, in fact. The argument - if one could call it that - was no doubt accountable for this.

Having spent more than two weeks in the Elf prince's sanctuary, the unlikely pair had fallen into some bizarre habits – Nuada training under Dylan's disapproving eye, trying to sweat out the virulent poison and iron sickness that pervaded his blood and rendered him nearly weaker than a mortal, and Dylan doing the chores usually reserved for the lowly elementals bound to the sanctuary. The iron in Dylan's blood – a trait the Fey Ones did not share – slowed the healing magic's effect on her body. Sixteen days of healing had sped up the process, but not by much. Three weeks, perhaps, of magical mending, had been packed into a little less than two.

As for Nuada... the contamination of his wounds, though combated by magic and medicine, still kept those injuries laced with infection from healing properly. The slash at his ankle, the stab wound in his shoulder, and the gunshot wounds in his thigh and arm refused to close properly. They oozed a noxious-smelling fluid that looked and stank like sour milk. Once the seepage had begun, Nuada had refused Dylan's aid. The injuries continued to worsen. That fact pricked the Elven warrior's temper like a needle.

What honed said temper was the realization that, upon discovering his mortal caregiver's absence, his first feeling had been a brief stab of concern – not for his own safety, or anything centered around the Elf prince at all, but a fear for Dylan.

Curse that  _loathsome_  human. Somehow, she was corrupting the blond warrior. Entirely against his will, he found himself beginning to almost... to almost  _like_  her. The way one begins liking a stray cat or dog that stays around long enough to ingratiate itself to people.

The idea made him grit his teeth.

"Where is the human?" Nuada asked of the sylph, the salamander, and the crinaeae. The fire elemental and the little nymph in the well did not speak. Neither did the air sprite. This silence, and Dylan's absence, Nuada's own physical weakness and the persistent ache throughout his body, honed his already knife-sharp temper to a razor edge.

"Well? Where  _is_ she?" He demanded, his voice a beast's growl. The blond warrior glared at the empty room. Irritation tingled in his blood. Something, a shimmering voice like wind chimes, murmured the answer in his ear. Nuada muttered, "Another bath? That mortal indulges herself far too often."

_ Hiding _ .

"Hiding?" The prince echoed, forcing the odd twinge in his chest to fuel his irritation. "From what? There is no danger here. I will not harm her so long as she is in my care. From what does the human hide?"

_ Everything. Water make her feel safe. Much water in her blood. She know sister-water. _

Indeed. She knew of Sister Water, how water is the life giver, and the daughter of Mother Earth? How did she know that? Aloud, he asked, "What makes you say this, Ariel?"

_ She move like selkie, sing like mermaid. _

"I very much doubt she moves so gracefully or sings so beautifully."

_ No, no, no! Not graceful or beautiful, Highness. Love. Full of love. She love it all. _

"I do not understand," Nuada murmured, frowning absently. He felt his rage fading away as he continued to regard the flickering wisp of fairy in front of his face. "What of love? What do you mean?"

_ No explain. You see. Someday. Human in bathtub. _

"Well... I care not. At any rate, she was beginning to smell."

_ Smell? No smell. Human smell. _

Moving to work the stiffness from his limbs, he went to one of the trunks lined up against the walls of his sanctuary and retrieved a fresh change of clothes. The Elf had some errands he wished to attend to, and he wanted to run them in clothes that did not stink of human female. The Elf knew he needed to make his escape from this place quickly. The stones of the floor and the walls themselves oozed mortal stench. It sickened him.

Nuada hastily donned black trousers, tunic, and boots – a very casual ensemble for him – and made his way to the entrance of his healing sanctuary. Stopping only long enough to grab his spear (only a fool went around unarmed in these times), the prince pressed his palm to the chamber's entryway as a soft voice made its way through the door to the bathing chamber.

_ "... The mermaid weeps blood red pearls _ __  
_While Bluebeard beheads his lovely girls,_   
_And Rapunzel's deceitful braid unfurls_  
__To lure the prince to his death.

_ "An Arabian night burns like a star, _   
_And Cinderella drives a fancy glass car._  
_But Little Red can only run so far_  
_Before the Big Bad Wolf can find her..."_

Nuada glanced back over his shoulder at the wooden door to the bathing room. What was this? The words reminded him of the old, mortal children's tales he'd heard long ago, but the melody was dark and bitter, melancholy. These words, just like Dylan's words from that dark night a week ago, somehow resonated with something inside the Elf prince. Dylan's voice shuddered down the Elf's spine, making him shiver. Her voice tasted of bone-deep loneliness, black despair. Again he thought of Nuala, of the grief in her during the wars against the humans all those centuries ago. Yet how could a mortal feel such grief? They felt nothing except the base emotions of an animal - fear, hunger. Nothing more.

_ "Someone cut down the fairy wood. _ __  
_Crying about it won't do any good,_   
_And Goldilocks won't do what good girls should,_  
__But she does what works for her.

_ "Odile hides and Odette cries. _   
_The Goose Girl weeps over her maiden lies._  
_Dwarven hearts shatter when Snow White dies._  
_And the child won't listen anymore._

_ "Dolls are dying while Clara dances. _   
_Secrets are lost behind magic mirror glances,_  
_And the Lass has lost all four of her chances._  
_It doesn't matter anymore..._

_ The stories don't matter anymore... _ "

The resonance reached a pitch that made some dark, long-suppressed emotion rise up in Nuada. How did a human understand such pain enough to sing about it so convincingly? What if... what if...

A wave of disgust and fury suddenly threatened to swamp him. Red descended over his eyes. His hands balled into white-knuckled fists. The pounding tide of his blood roared in his ears. Nuada snarled something vile under his breath. Muttering the spell that allowed him to leave the sanctuary, the suddenly furious Elf warrior strode quickly from the chamber. The air tasted of hatred and pain.

**. **

Dylan sighed and closed her eyes. Wavelets lapped at her bare skin, and candlelight danced across her face. She allowed her body to float on the surface of the bath water as she breathed.

The song she had sung burned the inside of her mouth, but she'd felt compelled to sing it. It was... a brutal piece, something one of her patients had written after his parents had forced him into the teen psychiatric ward at Saint Vincent's Hospital. Apparently, the youth - a boy named Henry Swan - wrote "violent and disturbing poetry," and had already been suspended for a piece submitted to his high school newspaper.

After hearing the song, and talking to the young man, Dylan had fought to get him out of that place. She knew what mental hospitals were like. For children who knew they were sane, it could numb the soul.

Even kill it. How well she knew  _that_.

Sighing, the brunette ducked beneath the water, wetting her hair, and tried to capture the feeling she'd had as a kid. How many times had she pretended to be a mermaid – although a very clumsy mermaid – playing in the ocean with imaginary fish and other, more mystical water creatures? It had been real to her, and bright and brilliant, back then. Not so anymore. Maybe her imagination was deserting her.

Maybe the wolves had devoured it.

At the thought of the wolves, she kicked off the bottom of the tub and thrust through the surface of the water. Gulping air, she let the water half-carry her back to the shelf-seat carved into the wall of the tub. Her eyes stung. Blood from her bitten lip stung her mouth with its salt-sweet taste. Water cascaded over wet skin, dripping hair, upturned face. The current soothed, cleansed. Another sigh found its way into her lungs and out of her mouth.

"When am I going to leave this place?" She asked herself softly, aloud. "Do I even want to?"

Dylan glanced around, blue eyes taking in the huge, candlelit chamber. There was something otherworldly and timeless about this room. About the whole sanctuary. It made her feel safe. If dark dreams plagued her, she remembered nothing of them. No harm – well, very little harm – had come to her since passing across the sanctuary's threshold. The healing magic of the place soothed her pain. Nuada fed her, clothed her, gave her a bed and a place to bathe. If no responsibilities could be claimed by Dylan Myers, she might have asked her rescuer if she might stay in this place outside of time forever.

But she had patients. She had family - John and her sisters. She had her commitments at work and at church. In short, she had responsibilities. So of course, whether she wanted to or not, she had to leave someday. The thought made her heave another sigh.

_ I'm so melancholy today, _  Dylan murmured silently, somewhat surprised.  _It's my birthday - I'm twenty-nine today, and yet I'm so melancholy. Well, at least the urge to beat Nuada over the head has dissipated,_ she added gratefully. That idiot Elf... he insisted on beating himself to exhaustion, barely healed as he was. It made her want to scream. Or rip him a new breathing hole.

"Men are stupid," she muttered, and pulled herself out of the bath.

Dylan had never quite been able to see the invisible servants who attended to her and Nuada's needs, no matter how she strained to catch them. Somehow, in the three hours she'd been in the beautiful, steaming hot bath, her old clothes had been replaced, fresh towels had been laid out, and a particularly fragrant lotion that smelled of hyacinth blossoms and roses in a green glass pot had been left for her use.

She toweled off her hair, dried herself, and slipped on the pale shift the color of rose petals. Somehow, in the time it took for her to pick up the tiered, dark green skirt from the pile of folded laundry, the laces that ran from sleeve hem to elbow of the shift had been tightened and tied by an invisible attendant. Hastily donning the knee-length skirt and the leather vest, she tied it tightly. Then she arched her spine, trying to relieve some of the strain from not wearing a bra. Her back was beginning to have this constant ache near the shoulders – dull compared to the rest of her injuries, but irritating nonetheless. Trying unsuccessfully to ignore it, the mortal glanced at herself in the glass. Dylan always found the clothes in front of the full-length mirror in the bath chamber. Now, when she glanced at herself in the silvered looking glass, it seemed like some gypsy princess out of a storybook gazed back at her.

Her face ruined the image.

Bruises faded out to purple and green still couldn't hide the angry slashes, now a raspberry maroon instead of black, that sliced across her face. Dylan counted more than twenty lacerations to her face. One of them wrenched at the corner of her eye, dragging it sideways. Another slash did the same to her ruined mouth. The cuts twisted her features. Even as she scanned her reflection, the eyes in the mirror were blank and glassy, empty of recognition. Around her neck was a circlet of ugly yellow rosettes, a souvenir from her rescuer's brutal grip. The sight did nothing for the emptiness in her gaze.

_ We've been hiding too much, _  her little inner voice muttered. Sometimes, under stress, the battered woman lapsed into her childhood habit of referring to herself in the plural. It was a thing she and John had done since learning to speak. It had taken their parents several years to get them to stop.  _Too much time in the bathroom,_  the voice continued.  _Need to face reality eventually._

_ Not right now, _  she murmured back.  _I know it's not healthy... but not right now. I just want to go to sleep. I don't want to deal with it._

_ Coward... _

_ Yes, I am. Sue me. _   _It's my birthday gift to me._

Ignoring the voice as a yawn overtook her, the human sank to the floor and began smoothing the pale-rose cream over her skin. The delicious perfume of summer flowers danced in her nose. If Dylan closed her eyes, it was almost as if she were home, in her garden, among her flower beds and herbs. Chewing her bottom lip – already shredded like ragged bits of silk – to keep from sighing again, she got to her feet and pushed her way through the bathroom door and into the main chamber.

It only took her a few moments to notice the absence of pale amber eyes and a dark, brooding form with moon-white skin. It took her some longer moments to realize that this meant Nuada was no longer there in the chamber. The mortal, eyes wide in her face, pressed her ear to the door opposite the bathing chamber, but heard no movements from within the privy. She began to shake. Sinking to the floor, Dylan stared in numb disbelief at the entryway to the sanctuary, wondering what she was supposed to do now. The Elf was gone. Never in the sixteen days she'd been in this place had he ever left her. Now she was alone – helpless, defenseless, prey for the wolves.

The blood drained from her face. There was no protector anymore. It was only herself, ensnared in the dimly lit stone room that was now a prison. Only herself. No Nuada. Certainly no John. Only herself. The enemy was coming. The wolves prowled. She must not stay out here, in the open. She could not.

Finally, Dylan found it in herself to be able to move. Hastily rising to her feet, staggering a little, she made her way to the bed. When her fingers touched it, the golden quilt warmed her suddenly cold skin. It smelled of wild forests and faerie glens. The scent of an Elven warrior prince. Snatching it up, the human carried it, the pillow, and one of the little books from her last vacation back into the bathing chamber, locking the door behind her.

Wrapped up in the blanket with the pillow between the cold stone of the wall and her bruised back, it took very little prompting for the tired, terrified woman to fall asleep sitting up.

**. **

Wandering the subway tunnels, the Elf prince made his way carefully back to the chamber he usually called home. He had several sanctuaries throughout the tunnels, in case of a need for a place to retreat. Several lairs also, in case he needed to travel or lay low. But he had only one pseudo-home in his exile, a place made extremely comfortable over the last century. The warrior found himself there now. Tension drained out of him as the magical wards woven into the stones washed over him, welcomed him.

Home. He was home. Of a sort, at least. He could relax a bit.

"Nuada!"

The blond warrior jerked around, wincing as the stitches in his wounds pulled at him. Sweat broke out on his forehead, but he wiped it away. He did not want Wink to see the extent of his injuries. The troll might smell the blood. That was all. He would not know of the sickness spreading through Nuada's veins from the poisonous iron in the human weapons. Would not realize that the dipsa venom had not worked completely out of his system yet, even after almost four moons. And hopefully he would not catch the scent of the mortal woman on his skin.

"How long have you been here, my friend?"

Mr. Wink lumbered up out of the large bronze chair he had been resting in and heaved his massive bulk over to the Elf prince. The troll took in his friend and prince, eyes missing nothing. The loose clothes, the thinness around the Elf's face and the gauntness of his frame, the way the prince limped, favoring his left leg: the silver troll's sharp, dark eye saw it all.

"Since you left. Where in the gods' names have you been? What happened? You go to rescue a human woman and you disappear for more than two weeks."

"Worried, Mr. Wink? I am touched."

The troll felt no compunction about whapping the Elf prince across the back of his head. Lowering his guttural voice to an even deeper growl, Wink grumbled, "Prince or no prince, I will  _not_ take sass from you. You would do well to remember that I was the one to save you and your sister and-"

"And avenge my mother's death. I know. You have been father, brother, and friend to me when my own family betrayed me. I know, Wink. I am truly grateful for your concern. There have been... complications."

"Complications?"

"The human... she is... different. Not like the others." Upon seeing Wink's disbelieving look, Nuada continued hastily, "Do not look at me that way. This human has taken it upon herself to care for me. She doctored my wounds. If not for her aid, I might very well have perished." He despised the fact that he felt the need to defend Dylan, a lowly mortal, to Wink, his oldest and most loyal friend. "The monsters that attacked her, they shot me with lead and attacked me with iron. She cared for me."

"My prince... she is a  _human_."

"She is not like the other humans," the prince insisted. "She has honor. Compassion." Nuada had no idea where the words were coming from. But his honor demanded he defend the mortal woman who had risked her life more than once to save his. He could not let Wink believe that somehow, this human had bewitched him. "She reminds me... she reminds me of Nuala, at times. With her stubbornness, her desire to care for others. It is almost infuriating – you know how I hate that my sister will insist on caring for others when she has an equal or greater need. The mortal woman is just like that. She spent nearly eight hours removing the pieces of iron and lead from my body and stitching my wounds even though she was sorely injured herself and practically swaying with exhaustion."

Now that he was relaying the past events to Wink, he was seeing what Dylan had done with new eyes. It had been more than the Elf had realized until now. How could a human have that much compassion for another creature? Still, the mortal woman confused him.

"Is she a friend, then, Nuada? This human?"

"Don't be disgusting," the Elf snapped, rising to his feet. The prince had only come to tell Wink he was safe. That done, he surely needed to return to the sanctuary. If Dylan tried to leave, things would not go well with her and the golem that guarded the place. "Of course not. But she is different. It is well that I saved her from those men."

"Where are you going?"

"I must go back. She cannot leave the sanctuary on her own without danger, but if she believes me to be in any sort of trouble, do not doubt that she will try to come after me, to help. I will have no harm to her while she is in my care. My honor demands it."

The troll sighed. "You and your honor. You guard it so preciously. Sometimes, it astonishes me that your father cannot see you for the honorable warrior you truly are."

"My father is blinded to many things," Nuada replied, ignoring the sudden throb of pain lancing his temples. "He looks for honor where there is none, and does not see it where it resides. I may be back," he added, changing the subject, "sometime in the next weeks. I have to take Dylan to the human hospital-"

"Dylan?"

"The human," he amended hastily. "I must take the human to the hospital. Her wounds heal while she is within the sanctuary, but I am uncertain what will happen once she leaves. Is it possibly like immortality, obtained in Elfland but lost upon returning to the mortal world? I do not know. I do not want to risk her wounds returning without her being near a hospital. Then I have to remove any trace of her from the sanctuary. You know the laws, and what my father will think if he learns of this."

"Aye, I know both very well. Be careful, my prince."

Dark lips curved into an arrogant smirk. "Am I not always?"

Wink watched Nuada limp away. The troll's heart thumped, troubled, in his breast. The prince had changed in the last sixteen days. Never had he heard Nuada defend a human before.  _Never_ heard him compare his precious twin to one. There had never been a mortal to survive an encounter with the lethal Elf prince (except perhaps for a child). Now this human woman, this "Dylan," had forced the blond warrior to admit that perhaps not all of the Children of Mud were as evil as he had always believed.

"Your father is blinded to many things, Nuada. But then again, so too are you."

**. **

Dylan shivered beneath the blanket. The rough, red stone bit into her hip and shoulder, but she didn't wake. Instead, the human slept on, caught between the panic of a night terror and the calmer, not so strickening fear of a regular nightmare.

Dreams of pain and screaming. A knife slicing across her face. The sanguine red of clothing beneath sizzling fluorescent lights, scarlet like a woman's blood spilling onto cold concrete. Her dress ripping under careless hands. Flesh bruising. Wolves slavering. Always, always the voice growling in her ear like an animal's,  _"We warned you,_ puta _. Stay away from Red girls. We warned you not to try and take one of us. We warned you."_  And then the sharp, thrusting, vicious pain tearing inside her and her voice shattering as she tried to scream.

Somewhere, behind all the darkness and the grasping hands, behind the sheet of blood in her eyes and the hell between her legs, was Nuada. He had saved her before. He would save her again.

Maybe.

**. **

The Elven warrior walked quickly. The itching between his shoulder blades, a rare physical manifestation of his uneasiness, was becoming maddening. It was in just such a spot that he couldn't reach around to scratch it. And why was he suddenly so uneasy? The Elf had no idea. If Dylan had tried to breach the wards – if anyone at all, human or otherwise, even Nuala – had tried to breach the warding spells around his sanctuary, he would have felt it, even as backlash. There had been nothing. Yet his instincts told him that danger was still stalking him, or perhaps even stalking he and Dylan both.

"Hail, Your Highness, Crown Prince Nuada, the Royal Exile."

A hearty, hail-fellow-well-met sort of voice called out to the exiled prince, and the fey prince stopped in his tracks, every nerve tingling, senses sharp as razors, muscles coiled and ready to spring. He knew that voice. He  _loathed_ that voice.

"Lord Eamonn," Nuada replied, and though his tone was cordial enough, his face blanked away any emotion as he turned to look at the Elf in front of him.

The Elves of Bethmoora, the Sons of the Earth, were pale, tall, graceful, with golden eyes and long, blond hair like gold or silver. Not so with Eamonn's kind. They were the Elves of Zwezda, the Sons of the Stars. Their skin was white, like Nuada's kindred, but their tresses were black as midnight, their eyes like gleaming steel, the pupils slitted like a cat's. It was said they were descended from Zorya Polunochnaya, the living Midnight Star. Yet if that were so, then Eamonn betrayed his noble blood with vile thoughts and viler actions. A slimy taint clung to his thoughts and his spirit. It sickened the Elf prince even to be near him.

There were thirteen Elf kingdoms among the countless fae nations, and there were others more antagonistic towards Bethmoora than Zwezda. But there was a special place, both in the most desolate plains of Annwn and in Nuada's heart, for Lord Eamonn.

Hands out in a show of harmlessness that the Elven warrior did not believe for an instant, that midnight-haired Elf grinned at Nuada with unusual warmth and drew abreast of him. Very deliberately, Eamonn took an exaggerated sniff.

"Can I help you?" Nuada demanded icily.

"Oh, no, Your Highness," the other Elf replied nonchalantly, slipping his hands inside the pockets of his black velvet trousers. The prince of Bethmoor despised Eamonn's foppishness (among other things). But the feral-eyed warrior forced himself to focus on his unwelcome companion as Eamonn continued, "It is only that I thought I smelled... but no, I must be mistaken."

A brief slice of unease, sharper than the itch between his shoulders. "Oh?"

"Yes. You see, Silverlance, I could have sworn that as I walked past you, I caught the scent of a... well, it matters not. I was, of course mistaken. After all," he replied to the raising of Nuada's eyebrow. "There is simply no possible way one would ever catch the scent of a human clinging to the Silver Lance."

Only years of living in Elven court kept the Elf prince from flinching away from Eamonn. He ought to have bathed, he realized. Then the scent of Dylan would be gone completely from him. But of course, trying to be chivalrous, he had allowed her to remain unmolested in the bathing chamber. Now one of his enemies had caught the smell of her on his skin. The very idea made the blond Elf want to shudder with revulsion. Instead, he looked into Eamonn's eyes.

"No," Nuada replied. "I do not think there is any way in this world that a human would have reason to come near enough to me that its scent would catch on my clothes. Perhaps you are ill, Lord Eamonn. Mayhap you should see a healer. As for me, I shall continue on my way. Farewell."

"Goodbye, Prince Nuada," Eamonn said. "I hope to speak with you again." And he clapped one meaty hand on the warrior's shoulder. The prince gritted his teeth as nearly a hundred pounds of force collided with the swollen, inflamed flesh around the infected stab wound in his shoulder.

Nuada walked stiffly away, with Eamonn sneering at the Elf prince's back.

**. **

Dylan awoke when the door to the bathing chamber creaked opened. If it had slammed open, she might have attacked, thrown the nearest heavy object at whoever was trying to get in. But instead, it was a silent opening, and there was no sound of footsteps. That told Dylan one of three things: either it was the invisible servants, Nuada had returned, or another fey creature was slowly sneaking up on her.

Since the door creaked open slowly, she had enough time to regain control of her ragged breathing and shake off the nightmare. Enough time to flick her eyelashes just enough to see through them.

When Dylan caught a glimpse of golden hair and black linen, she sat upright.

"Nuada!" Remembering who she spoke to, she added belatedly, "Erm... Your Highness. You're back. I... I was worried."

He nodded to her in greeting, ignoring the sentiment of concern. "I require medical assistance."

Any relief or – dare she say it? – joy the mortal woman had felt upon seeing Nuada's face was eclipsed now by equal parts fear and irritation. Did he have to order her around all the time? Yes, he was a prince, but still! Wasn't he supposed to act graciously? Sometimes the injured warrior could act so much like her twin brother it was strange. But the human's heart thumped in her chest as she saw that the back of Nuada's shirt was soaked. He carefully peeled it off, and she saw the damage.

The flesh around the stab wound was maggot-white, laced with angry, bright amber lines cutting across the dead-looking infected flesh into the rest of Nuada's back. The wound itself was puffy, the scab more like a thin, transparent shell over a well of toxic yellow pus and blood. She saw places where the scab had been perforated, leaking pus and blood onto Nuada's skin. Dylan gaped, struggling against the urge to throw up and the feeling that she was looking at a humongous Elf zit the size of her doubled fists.

"What. Did. You.  _Do_  to it?" She demanded, rushing over to him. "You're lucky you don't have, like, gangrene or acute blood poisoning or lockjaw or something!" The human dragged the Elf out of the bathing chamber into the main room, shoving him into the customary chair beside the single table. She grabbed her tools. "You idiot! Prince or not, you should have mentioned this to me way before now! I may just be a stupid mortal, but I'm also the closest thing you have to a healer right now. Moron." Without even thinking about it, the mortal gave him a good whack on the other, uninjured shoulder. "I'm gonna have to cut off the dead tissue. Jeez, this is why you need to do what I tell you-"

"Do you intend to henpeck me," Nuada demanded, fingers curling into a fist against the urge to strike her back, "like some shrewish dwarf wife, or do you plan on helping me?"

Anger burned in Dylan's chest. "Begging your pardon, Your Highness, but bite me." And when she lanced the wound with her silver knife (a gift from a Wiccan girl who said her therapist needed to be more in control of where her energy was going) instead of cutting gently, she sliced as if it were a piece of tough-as-leather beef pot roast. The Elf grunted in pain.

"You did that on purpose." Several  _very_  derogatory terms for females tried to jump off his tongue, but applying them to the human would've insulted the rest of her gender.

"You're right," she told him with a furious glitter in her eyes, as if she could read his mind. "If you'd listened to me, this wouldn't have happened. And you  _traumatized_ it. You hit it on something, didn't you?"

The Elf warrior opened his mouth to defend himself, to tell her of the malicious backslap from Eamonn, but he closed it as she glanced at him and murmured, "You've got to do what I tell you, or you could end up permanently damaged, okay? Please? I'm not kidding about this. I'm only trying to help, but I can't do that if you won't let me. So from now on, I check your wounds every eight hours, got it? And we put Echinacea and everything else on it at those times. I don't want your arm rotting off and I really don't think you do, either. Please, Your Highness."

He could have argued. He  _should_ have argued. He was Crown Prince Nuada, the Silver Lance, heir to the throne of Bethmoora, son of Balor the One-Armed King of Elfland. He could have won the argument with her. But as she began setting up her tools, he saw a tear roll slowly down her cheek. Dylan would have to hurt him, and the Elf knew she hated to do that. And in that moment she reminded him once more of his beloved twin, just a little.

"Very well," he replied. "I will do as you say... for now."

"Thank you... my prince," Dylan murmured without looking at him.

Silence. And then...

"You are welcome."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References Made In This Chapter:  
> \- "Well? Where is she?" is from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Who remembers that scene, where Cogsworth pokes into the study and the Beast, who was all nervous about eating dinner with Belle, is like, "Dude, where's my woman?" And so is the last line with the whole "you're welcome," thing. In D's B&B, while Belle is tending to the Beast's wounds from the wolves, she says, "Thank you, by the way. For saving my life." And the Beast looks all surprised and like he doesn't know what to say, and finally says, "You're welcome."  
> \- The thing about "Sister Water" is inspired by a Native American belief (I learned about it in choir and from a book whose name escapes me, as this was more than six years ago) that there is Mother Earth, Father Sky, Brother Fire, and Sister Rain (I think). Something like that.  
> \- The air sprite's name, Ariel, is not named after the little mermaid from the Disney film. She is named after the chief sylph in Alexander Pope's the Rape of the Lock. The sylph was originally named Aideen (see below).  
> \- Adine is the name of the fairy who helps the heroes in the old live-action Fox show, Mystic Knights of Tir na nOg. She's your typical Barbie-sized winged thing. She's the ancient Irish version of Alpha Five from Power Rangers, but less panicky.  
> \- In case you're wondering, the water nymph's name, which is Essa, is actually short for Myrtoessa, who is a crinaeae from Greek mythology, one of the nurses of infant Zeus. She dwelt in a well in Arcadia. The salamander's name is Rashi.  
> \- Odile is the Black Swan from Swan Lake. If anyone has seen the Swan Princess, she's the old hag who gets turned into Odette (only in a black and red dress, instead of her usual white and green one) so that Rothbart, the villain, can trick the Prince into making a vow of eternal love to the wrong woman (thereby killing Odette).  
> \- Clara is the name of the MC in the Nutcracker ballet and the animated film the Nutcracker Prince, although I think her name is Marie in the original book. And in the Care Bears' Nutcracker Adventure, her name is Anna.  
> \- The Lass is the name of the MC in Jessica Day George's novel Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow, based on the Scandinavian fairy tale, "East of the Sun and West of the Moon." In S&M/I&S, the MC is never given a name until the end of the book. Her family calls her this one word that means "girl," but her brother, who has traveled abroad, calls her "Lass," instead.  
> \- Henry Swan is the grandson of Snow White in the ABC television series, Once Upon a Time (lol).  
> \- Daft is an old English word for "crazy" or "stupid."  
> \- Zwezda is another name for Zorya, the triple-goddesses of Slavic mythology known as the Aurora. There are three: Zorya Utrennyaya, the Morning Star, who opens the gates to the Sun's (her father's) palace every morning for the sun-chariot's departure; Zorya Vechernyaya, the Evening Star, closes the palace gates once more after the Sun's return. Zorya Polunochnaya, the Midnight Star, holds her "dying" father until dawn comes again. This name (Elves of Zwezda) was chosen because it doesn't really make sense for all the Elves to come from Ireland (which Nuada does, since his name is Nuada). Although Eamonn's name is Irish, he doesn't have to be (kind of like how there are white girls named Nashira, even though that has a distinctly non-caucasian flavor).  
> \- Annwn is the Welsh otherworld, and before Christianity came through Wales, was a really nice place; a veritable land of youth and prosperity. But later it was Christianized into being a form of the afterlife. However, it is said to have been a nice place, though this is severely contradicted by the epic poem Cad Goddeu and in Preiddeu Annwfn, an early medieval poem found in the Book of Taliesin, as well as the story Vita Collen and the early Welsh Arthurian tale, Culhwch and Olwen.  
> In Cad Goddeu, Annwn is said to be people by hideous monsters. Preiddeu Annwfn tells of Arthur, the bard Taliesin, and three boatloads of men go to Annwn, but only seven return (implying the place is somehow dangerous). Vita Collen implies a demonic essence to the court of Annwn, as Saint Collen vanquished the king of Annwn and his court from Glastonbury Tor - an island near where Avalon was said to be - using holy water. And in Culhwch and Olwen, it is said God have the King of Annwn control over demons.  
> \- Lockjaw is the old name for tetanus.


	8. The Last Night, and the First (Again)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nearly healed at last, it is time for Dylan to leave the underground sanctuary. But as a healer with the Sight, her fate is tied to that of Prince Nuada in more ways than one...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains mentions of menstruation; also PTSD flashbacks, and instances/mentions of rape, panic attacks, psychiatric therapy, therapy avoidance, plastic surgery, blood, sexual harassment, racism, war, gangs, gang violence, family neglect, family emotional abuse, non-sexual assault, nudity, politics, depression, the unhealthy mental condition known as hypervigilance, chronic pain, and pain management (including physical therapy and prescription painkillers).
> 
> This chapter was co-written with OceanFire9, from Fanfiction.net, who does not have an AO3 account.

**A Short Tale of Oaths, Farewells, Life After Magic, Potential Problems, and Blood**

.

.

The mortal woman inspected the healing wound on Nuada's shoulder with gentle fingers. When the Elf didn't hiss or tense, she allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction. Her healing salve and the other doctoring she'd given the stubborn prince were finally working. Mortal medicine worked on the Fayre after all – up to a point. Blue eyes ran along the stitched wound that looked so disturbingly like a ravenous mouth. There were no xanthous lines or discolored flesh, no foul smell or pus. The flesh around the wound was cool and dry to the touch, as well. Now the infection was gone, the wound itself was finally healing. The same for his other injuries. He'd also recovered from the iron fatigue and the poison from the snake bite, thanks to the tisanes she brewed for him. A few more days of mundane care and Elven healing, combined with the magic of the sanctuary, and Nuada would be good as new.

She told him so.

"What did you say?" Nuada asked softly, glancing at Dylan's barely-healing face.

After nearly three months beneath the surface of New York City, hidden away in the fantastical subway sanctuary, the Elven prince no longer felt the sickening sensation in the pit of his belly when he looked into the mortal woman's troubled, nearly-healed face. He no longer found himself wanting to shout at or shake her, draw his sword and spear her through her empty heart. Sometimes, when something she said struck him as amusing, he even managed to smile a little, though he never let her see that. He even managed to call her by name instead of merely "human" or "woman."

 _It's progress_ , Dylan admitted.  _No more veiled death threats_   _or glares, thank goodness. That was starting to get old._

She'd made progress as well. Though the choking fear of discovery, of attack, of yet another vicious rape, burned in her stomach nearly constantly when she was alone, the human could admit that around Nuada, she actually felt safe. He'd made it clear that despite his loathing for humanity, as long as he still breathed and she remained in this sanctuary with him, he would keep her safe from any and all who would even think about hurting her. The nearly-healed mortal woman had to admit that knowing she had a powerful Elven warrior for a bodyguard made her feel secure.

That still didn't stop the nightmares... or the looming dread that eventually she had to leave this place and go back out into the world of men and monsters again.

"I said," Dylan replied, revealing none of that dread, "your wounds are much, much better, Your Highness. The infection is completely gone. The iron-fatigue is gone, too. You've fully recovered from the dipsa venom. At this rate, your wounds should be completely closed in four or five days, a week at most."

"Good," the Elf replied absently, staring off into space. "That is well." His vacant jewel eyes clouded over, obscuring the thoughts behind them. He tapped the chair arm with his fingers while he thought, pursing his lips, barely moving save for the even rise and fall of his bare chest.

Blushing when she realized she'd been staring at him for almost a full minute, Dylan hastily put away her things, avoiding with savage determination even the remotest chance of looking near the vicinity of his face. She didn't want to think about what in the world could make Nuada look that way. The human had an irritating and possibly all too correct idea that he was considering when she would finally be able to vacate the supernatural sanctuary.

"There's something we must speak of," Nuada said suddenly after the silence had stretched near to breaking.

Dylan's muscles coiled and tensed. Shivers crawled up her spine. She knew exactly what Nuada wanted to talk about.

"I have to leave," she murmured, looking anywhere but at the Elven warrior. "Don't I? I have to go back to my own people. I'm not allowed to stay here any longer, am I, Your Highness?"

Nuada glanced at her before returning his brooding gaze to the – apparently – incredibly interesting, unadorned stone wall. After what seemed like a thousand small eternities but was probably in fact approximately ten minutes, the prince replied, "No, you're not."

Sharp Elf ears caught the shuddering, indrawn breath. His hackles bristled. His eyes narrowed to slits of pale golden icebergs. Was she afraid of facing the outside world again? Was she truly a coward after all? The prince felt more than a little foolish that he still attempted to ferret out ways the human in his care could be treacherous or anything less than he deemed she ought to be. As of yet, none of the theories that presented themselves held water. She'd been here for nearly three moons. Surely she should've betrayed her true nature by now. Still... as her face drained of color and her eyes unfocused, a slice of alarm cut across his mind. Was she all right? Was she going to faint?

"Why?" She asked simply. Desperately. "Why must I go?"

The Elf gritted his teeth and stared resolutely at the ground. He felt the waves of pure anguish rolling off her, tiny darts biting into his skin. Such grief and fear would've choked a lesser Elf, forced him to give into her desire. Give in and let her infect his sanctuary further with her iron-laced blood and human stench. But he would not. Goosebumps rippled across his flesh as he focused on her for the first time for more than ten seconds and glared molten bronze daggers.

Dylan didn't flinch. That only served to infuriate him more, though he couldn't have said why. Did this mortal never behave the way humans ought? Why didn't she fear him like the coward she should have been?

"You must go back to your own world," Nuada replied in a tight voice. His eyes had darkened to furious bronze, he could feel it, yet the mortal didn't so much as step back from him. "You are yourself nearly completely healed. Also, you've said I'm very nearly completely well. Therefore, the need for your services is past, and it's time for you to return to your own kind."

"They're  _not_ my kind," the brunette woman replied waspishly, without thinking. As soon as the acid in her voice splashed her awareness, Dylan cast an apologetic look towards the prince, who merely allowed his mouth to shift into a smirk rather than a stormy scowl. She knew him well enough now to know that tone of voice was no longer enough to incite his wrath against her (usually). Three moons, and the short temper of a hormonal woman during three moontimes, had helped with  _that_. And for some reason, he found her disgust with the stupidity and sin of the majority of the human race amusing.

"I don't want to go," Dylan whispered. "Please, my prince... Nuada, I..."

"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Don't mortals often say such?" Nuada demanded. "Don't waste your wishes on what you can never attain. Such wishes will never be granted. And you'll remember to use my title."

Dylan bowed her head. "I beg your pardon, Your Highness."

For a long time after that, neither spoke. Nuada brooded in his chair, chin propped on one fist. Dylan gathered her things together with trembling fingers and tears burning in the backs of her eyes. As she moved, she prayed.

 _Heavenly Father_ , she mumbled in her mind.  _I can't do this. I can't leave this place. I'm safe here. How can I leave? How can I go back out there and face everyone?_ For once, Dylan was grateful her parents had died in a bus accident after her graduation from medical school. They were the one entity she wouldn't have to face when she finally got home.  _What will John say? The girls? Peabody? How will I go back to church?_ What if everyone stared at her when she went back? She couldn't stand having them stare at her. The mortal didn't want to think about what the people in her ward were saying about her disappearance. Probably worried out of their minds, but what about when they learned what had happened to her?

 _Except they won't,_ she reminded herself.  _They won't stare, because they know better. And they won't know what happened unless there's a trial and it made the papers, which won't happen because those guys are dead. Nuada killed them._  A flicker of unease, of disquiet. He  _had_ killed them. Without a trial, without a conviction, in the most horrible way. Why didn't she care? Why was she so easy with this man who could kill without remorse?

 _Nuada killed them to protect me,_ she reminded herself.  _To protect us both. And they were guilty._   _I know it._   _He knew it. He protected me._

 _Oh, God... how can I leave Nuada? How can I leave the one person who makes me feel safe?_ Which made her feel like a coward. She knew Nuada didn't actually want her there. Only his strict code of honor had strong-armed him into letting her stay until she recovered.  _That and he needs me so he doesn't keel over dead,_  the human thought. The idea brought a flicker of a smile to her scarred mouth.  _Elven prince or not, he needs to learn to relax and not work so hard._

Dylan moved on to folding the clothes the Elf had given her. The prince had told her icily that she could keep them, since "they stink of human now."  _Probably expects me to hock them_. But she would never give up such beautiful clothes... unless, for whatever reason, she could no longer wear them and she donated them to Deseret Industries or Good Will. Or if one of the girls at her church needed dresses for a charity project.

The mortal woman realized she missed the youth service projects and church services. She missed her job. Missed helping young people. Missed John, Peabody, Donovan. Anya and Joyce. Her sisters. Her friend, Peri. Ariel, her secretary. Even Kaye, her old boss from college who was still her good friend. Maybe... maybe she  _needed_  to leave. Maybe. She needed to start being useful to people again… even though the thought made her sweat. Made her heart pound like a kettle drum. She'd already missed out on so much that had once been important in her life - celebrating her birthday with her twin; enjoying Christmas with her brother and the people from church; chaperoning the New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day youth dances... so many things. Maybe it was time to leave the world of Faerie behind.

But she didn't  _want_  to...

After what seemed like hours of silence, Dylan ventured to glance up from the folded dresses at the Elven prince. "Your Highness?"

Silence.

No sound penetrated the pregnant soundlessness in the magical chamber. Dylan shivered, eyes on Nuada. There was a violence brewing behind his eyes, electric hot, and at the sight of it her heart beat against her sternum as the mortal stared at her immortal companion. His pitch-black lips pursed in thought, brow furrowed, Dylan had no idea what he was thinking, or whether the fae warrior was even thinking about her. The resolution to be strong, to be all right with the decision to leave, slipped away from her like water.

After perhaps fifteen minutes, the human moved to get up, to go somewhere else – maybe that lovely bathtub, one last time; anywhere, as long as she didn't have to see the prince brooding like that – when Nuada reached out and gripped her arm. Her wide blue eyes stared at him. Did he hear the way her heart screamed in her chest from racing so swiftly? Did he know that fear tingled over her skin like static electricity?

"What are you doing?" She quavered. Her mind screamed at her to run, but she couldn't. Not when he looked at her.

He caught and held her eyes, the amber gaze practically burning her. The entrancing gaze of a cobra staring at a mouse. There was so much hidden behind the glacial topaz stare that she couldn't seem to grasp. Was he hiding it from her? Or was it merely her nervousness at being forced – well, no one was forcing her, not really, but she very much wished she could stay within the walls of the sanctuary forever, stay with this man who she knew would protect her, until Hell froze over, until the world ended – into returning to the outside world of mortals?

Nuada had told her that her wounds might return, like the years passed by in a fairy tale for humans, their true age swooping down on them the moment their feet touched mortal soil. Just the thought of it made her heart pump harder. All that screaming hot pain, the shock of it, all at once after being free of it... Her breathing hitched. She couldn't stop herself from bracing for that sick, nauseating agony, though none was to come just yet.

"I'm not surprised you loathe life among the humans, one such as you," the Elven prince told her suddenly. He spoke harshly, gritting his teeth as if the words filled his mouth with a vile taste. Yet the words themselves were kind. Like that night when he'd confessed he regretted being unable to reach her in time to stop her attack. "You're not like other humans. But you cannot remain among my kind. You belong in your world. We must go now."

The Elf pretended not to see a tear rolling down Dylan's cheek. The sight filled him with a sharp, stabbing rage. How dare this mortal woman shed tears when he, the Silverlance, had done so much for her? With a barely suppressed snarl, he turned away and donned his crimson shirt and black tunic. The human didn't glance at him as she packed her large bag and clutched it to her chest. Her aversion to looking at him made that rage cut deeper. She acted as if he were a monster, instead of her rescuer. Her skittishness reminded him suddenly, sharply, of Nuala. Of the rift between them. Rage sliced through him like a knife of burning ice.

And yet... and yet…

Nuada waited patiently – almost – by the entryway to the safe haven for Dylan to gather her courage. Intellectually, the Elf supposed he could understand. The mortal had been horribly abused. Probably, she didn't feel safe outside of the sanctuary. Perhaps she even worried that he wouldn't fare too well without her care. In his mind, the prince understood all this.

But in his heart, he simply wanted the inconvenient human out of his sanctuary. Out of his life. Dylan was a problem. He'd incurred a debt. Well, it had been repaid, he felt. Now it was time for her to be gone. Otherwise... Nuada didn't know what would happen if she didn't leave, and soon. There was simply a nameless sense of dread looming somewhere out on the horizon, and it centered on his contact with the human woman.

Finally, the brunette woman strode over to him, trying to force herself to meet his icy, jeweled gaze. That made it difficult for Nuada to keep his grim expression. Dylan trying to be brave reminded him of a fluffed-out kitten spitting at a large dog - pure bravado, nothing else.

They were shoulder to shoulder then, and Nuada didn't have time to think about angry kittens or the mortal woman's resemblance to them. It was time.

The Elf laid his palm against the stone portal that led to the subterranean tunnels beyond. Voice as cold as he could make it, he told Dylan to do the same. When her trembling hand touched the strangely warm stone, Nuada reached out with his senses and found the guardian inside the stonework. The golem, an elemental of the earth with a deep sense of loyalty and a temper no mortal in their right mind would dare to spark, slowly awoke to Nuada's gentle touch. After all, the prince didn't want to make the beast think they were under attack. Instead, he simply asked the golem if he would open the door and allow them to pass. Grumbly, sleepy acknowledgment made the corner of the warrior's mouth twitch.

As soon as both pairs of feet were on the cold concrete of the subway system, Dylan gave a startled cry and crumpled to the ground. Her head hit the pavement with a sharp  _CRACK!_ Nuada jerked toward her instinctively and had to fight his revulsion as blood darkened the cream-colored dress the mortal wore. The nearly-healed cuts in her face split like bad seams. Blood gushed. Dark wetness spread in tiny streams from beneath the human's head, slicking the pavement and the dark, frizzy curls.

Snarling under his breath about mortals and the rules of Faerie, the Silverlance hoisted Dylan into his arms and began to run.

Nearly scalding wetness dripped steadily down his arm from the gash on the back of the mortal's head. Her breathing was wet and ragged. A tiny trickle of blood stained the corner of her mouth. With a muttered oath, the Elven prince ran faster. His feet pounded through the subway tunnels. His breath dragged into his lungs. He wasn't quite as well as he'd thought, he realized, as his calf began to burn, his shoulder to ache. Clenching his teeth against the pain in his shoulder from holding the bleeding human, the prince raced down the tunnels until...

"Nuada!"

Only centuries of military training kept the Elf from stopping at the sound of his name. If Eamonn saw him with Dylan in his arms and realized what she was... he didn't have time to think about the consequences.

Footsteps echoed behind him. Two pairs of booted feet slapped pavement. Harsh panting snarled at his back. With a curse, Nuada hefted the barely-conscious mortal and ran as fast as he could. His legs ached, his lungs burned. A stitch crept through his side. A stabbing pain lanced his ankle. What had the human told him? Without proper rest and time to heal, he might do his leg serious injury?

"Silverlance, I see you there with your human pet!" Eamonn's hard voice raged behind him. "I see you with your whore!"

Nuada's blood turned to ice in his veins. He had two choices: turn around, dump Dylan, and kill Eamonn now; or keep running and save his savior's life. If not for the human in his arms, he would most likely be dead now. And if he stopped to take on the Elf behind him, the mortal woman might die before Eamonn could be defeated.

"Come back, Silverlance! Face me like a true warrior! Coward! Coward who ruts with mortals! Turn and face me, coward!" Eamonn called.

Rage surged through the Elf warrior and he snarled his fury, but he didn't turn around. He only ran onward, out of the abandoned subway tunnels and into the dark alleys of the human city above.

The prince of Bethmoora growled as he jogged through the alleys of New York City. His feet led him through dark twists and turns. He skirted the pools of amber light from streetlamps, ran through gloaming shadows, until he found himself hidden in the dark. Golden eyes like a beast's watched the humans in their white coats and many-colored medical scrubs scuttling back and forth. Nuada's eyes cut to the lit sign overhead:

_Saint Vincent's Hospital, Women's Center._

The prince glanced down at Dylan, who gnawed her lip in an effort to keep silent. Her eyes were sunk into dark, violet shadows in her waxy face. The white flesh against the black bruise on her face told him the cracked cheekbone had returned. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead. Pain glinted in her eyes like bright stars, cold and far away. Pity tinged Nuada's expression as he scanned her face and felt the iron-laced blood running down his arms and chest from her injuries. Would she survive this? Or was he abandoning her to death? To avoid that death, he'd kept running in the face of Eamonn's insults. Ran until he made it to the surface. Would she die despite that?

"Thank you, Your Highness," Dylan whispered, blinking sleepily up at him. Her vision was beginning to sparkle. She stared at the Elf holding her like a child, wondering why he hesitated. All he had to do was drop her off and she'd be out of his hair forever. Why did he look so worried?

"Dylan..." He began.

"I won't... tell anyone," she promised, with a flash of sudden insight. If she'd been any less exhausted and in pain, the mortal woman might've been a tad irritated. Hadn't she proved herself to this prince already? But then again, she knew the fey never trusted humans, and that it wasn't personal. "I promise, Nuada... I swear on the Darkness That Eats All Things, that upon pain of death, I'll never willingly reveal you or your kind to your enemies. I swear that... I'll do what I've always... done - my best - to care for any Fae... I come across. Don't worry about that."

The Elf almost felt ashamed again.

Almost.

For a long moment, there was silence between them. Glacial eyes scanned Dylan's ashen face. Finally, all he said was, "I shall hold you to that."

"Goodbye, Your Highness. Please... please take care of yourself," the mortal mumbled, her eyes already turning upwards in the slide into unconsciousness.

The prince sprinted to an empty gurney. He heard the human healers talking about a "motor accident" and switching out equipment, but he ignored their talk and laid the bleeding, battered human on the bed. Scanning the sienna-tinged night around him, he spotted a few of the human healers heading toward him. They would reach him in less than a minute. They couldn't see him, shrouded as he was in darkness – only the quiet form on the gurney.

"Farewell, Dylan Myers," the Elven prince murmured, and slipped into the dark.

**.**

At 2:00 AM, almost ninety days since his sister's disappearance in the middle of December, John Myers' cell phone shrilled in the dark, wrenching the government agent from troubled sleep. He bolted upright with a jerk. Scrambling to turn off the alarm that wasn't there, he tumbled off the bed and crashed to the floor. He finally managed to catch the lamp chain and yank it. Where was his phone?

Under the bed! Grumbling under his breath, the young agent snagged the phone and managed to answer it on the sixth ring, right before it went to voicemail.

"John Myers."

For a moment, there was only the tinny sound of someone's voice coming through the speaker on his cell. John sat in stunned silence. It took him several throat clearings to ask, in a choked voice, "You found her? Is she okay?" He cleared his throat again. "Yes, I'll be right there. Yes. Twenty minutes."

He hung up on the receptionist at Saint Vincent's and ran to stuff his feet into his running shoes and grab his wallet and keys off the table by the front door of his apartment. He didn't care that he only wore his baggy, red Nintendo pajama bottoms and  _Invader Zim_  t-shirt. So he was a nerd loser with bed hair. So what? Somehow, miraculously, his twin sister had popped up on a gurney outside of the Women's Center at the hospital after being missing for almost three months.

As John scurried out of his apartment toward the building parking lot, he punched his fist into the air and hastily dialed his Uncle Thaddeus.

**.**

Wink had begun to nod off in his large chair when the sound of leather boots treading on stone brought him fully awake. Lurching to his feet, the troll peered into the dark corridor leading from the crown prince's chambers to the rest of the subway.

"It is I, my friend," a familiar voice called. Wink relaxed when the Elven prince strode into the lair, only to stiffen again in shock at the sight and stink of human blood drying on the Elf's skin. "Do not fear," Nuada added. "I haven't been in battle. I've rid myself of the mortal woman." Seeing the dawning anger on the troll's face, the prince added, "I took her to the nearest mortal hospital. When I brought her out of the sanctuary her wounds reappeared. I'd suspected they might. Carrying her brought me into contact with her blood." Nuada sighed, a sound of utter weariness. "Scarcely can I stand the feel of it against my skin. I must bathe."

"Of course, my prince," Wink said, but Nuada didn't wait, merely strode past him. Was the prince limping? And why did his shoulders slump so, as if he carried the weight of the world upon them?

Nuada would've enjoyed a shower – one of the enchantments built into his various chambers scattered throughout the New York Underground created many beautiful, cascading waterfalls in the bathing chambers, and he could use magic to alter the temperature of some. Others had been created to simulate nature. These were bracingly cold, and fish swam in the pools the waterfalls splashed down into. The current lair only possessed the latter. The warrior knew his aching muscles wouldn't appreciate the chilly water.

The Elven prince slid into steaming water in a bathtub of black marble. Black marble walls loomed above him. The ceiling was made of the same dark stone. Everywhere, diamond chips lit from within by magic sparkled and danced, as if tiny stars glittered against the black velvet night. In the crystal-clear water, with a few black candles' flames burning like small suns, it was as if the warrior floated amidst the heavens.

Would the human survive? Nuada didn't know. Without the sanctuary's healing magic, she would've died that first night, even if he'd been in any shape to tend her wounds. He was no healer, no sorcerer. He was a warrior and a prince first, a craftsman second. He understood magic, could use it himself. He knew a bit of soothing magic and some  _very_  basic flesh-shaping... but he didn't know how to heal others of such wounds as the ones Dylan had suffered. Perhaps he might send a healer to her at the hospital, one skilled enough to work the more powerful healing magics despite the poisonous metals and chemicals in the place. Surely he knew such a healer.

 _Shades of Annwn, what am I thinking?_ He demanded when he realized where his thoughts had gone _. What in the name of the gods is the matter with me? Thinking of sending one of my people into danger to help a human?_

But not just any human. This human had suffered so much when she'd done nothing but try to help his kind. Surely... but no. No, she was  _still_ just a human. There was nothing special about her, other than her care of the Wee Folk. Others over the centuries had done the same, though fewer and fewer as the years wore on. Still, it was nothing new.

_Yet such care she has taken... and such a price she's paid..._

Well, it was only what mortals owed the Folk anyway. After what humans had done to the world, raping it of life and beauty, ruining the earth itself so that none could survive easily there, they owed the Bright Ones much recompense for the damage done. Wars fought, countries ravaged, men slaughtered, women raped, children butchered, poisons spread. So the human woman understood the debt owed to the Fair Ones. All well and good. She knew her place. Mayhap she would teach that place to others.

 _I hope,_ he thought, surprising himself a little,  _that she survives this night, and many others, that she may do so. And so she may keep the vow she gave me, to care for my people. We need such caretakers... for now._

Then he truly shocked himself by thinking,  _Don't die, Dylan._   _Please._

**.**

She spent almost three weeks in the hospital. The first night was touch and go – she'd needed two blood transfusions – but by the next morning she'd been stable. They offered to fix her face –  _pro bono_ , apparently – but she refused. Dylan simply wanted to get out of the hospital that whispered of old memories and get back to her cottage as quickly as possible so she could hide.

Because of the sanctuary's magic, her injuries had mostly healed before reappearing. That healing made it look as if she'd been attacked, allowed to heal, and then attacked again. Since there was no way to explain that to modern medical science, Dylan didn't bother.

In the nineteen days spent trapped at the Women's Center, Dylan slept an average of three hours a night after that first horrible ten hours of morphine-induced oblivion. Three hours was barely long enough to pass into REM sleep for a few brief moments before being jerked back out by the throat from the throes of hellish nightmares. Always she dreamed of the men, the ones Nuada had called "human wolves." Dreamed they rose from the dead, torn and bloody, the decapitated one still headless. They never stopped trying to reach her, trying to pin her to the cold concrete and hurt her again. John slipped her Pepsi to help keep her awake. Sat with her those rare times she managed to sleep. Made sure the lights were bright and that he could comfort without scaring her when she woke in a cold sweat, throat raw from choking on screams.

Sometimes Anya and Joyce visited, but only briefly. She knew they were busy with their own lives and didn't even live in the city. Cards and flowers came from work, from the kids in her church Nursery class, from her special patients who possessed the Sight, from Donovan and Peabody. From Ariel, her secretary. From Kate, the changeling child whose sister Kaye was Dylan's friend and former boss. From Peri and Bean, the sidhe mother and son who lived near Dylan's cottage. From Joseph Pipkin and his group. Even from Doctor Hollis up in Psychiatrics, whom she'd gone to school with. The flowers helped combat the noxious smells of latex and disinfectant with the perfume of lilies and roses.

 _Just like Nuada's sanctuary,_ Dylan thought, and felt a measure of peace, and a sharp stab of grief. Had she made a mistake, leaving that place of safety? Should she have stayed? Stayed, where she would always be safe, where nothing could ever hurt her? Where Nuada would protect her?  _I wish I could see him again,_ she thought.  _Just once. I... I miss him._

But of course, he never came.

Her sisters visited, though. Once, Dylan awoke from a nightmare of corpses ripping at her red satin dress to see Petra. Petra, usually so cool and reserved, clutching one of Dylan's hands between hers until it almost hurt. Silvery blue eyes met eyes filled with worry. A smile winged between the youngest Myers sister and the eldest. The nine Myers children rarely got along, but Dylan was glad to see her big sister at her bedside. They'd probably end up shrieking at each other like rabid cats a month from now, but it didn't matter. She drifted off again to the sound of Petra humming.

Once, the eleventh day spent behind glass walls and flimsy, white curtains, barred by the chrome rails around her hospital bed, she'd slept for a full ten hours, her body beaten into exhaustion from lack of sleep, inebriating pain medication, and her injuries. She'd dreamed of being chased through Central Park by wolves, heart pounding and screams trapped in her throat, rose thorns slicing her arms and legs as she ran... and of being rescued by a huge, white lion with black-rimmed, golden eyes.

After that, she managed to get five or six hours of sleep instead of only three. Sometimes she dreamed of the lion, and sometimes she dreamed of a huge, ivory-furred hound with bronze eyes that loped at her side and bared its teeth at the shambling demons in her nightmares. But she always woke exhausted despite the sleep.

She also got a bouquet of rainbow-colored carnations wrapped in crinkly, tacky pink foil. Cheap, like the ones the grocery stores sold for Mother's Day. Well, it  _was_  nearly the end of February - probably a Valentine's Day leftover. Attached to the bouquet was a card that read "Get Well Soon" in sparkly pink letters on one side, surrounded by hearts. The words  _We fixed your problem_ in shoddy handwriting were scribbled on the other side. Dylan knew who it was from - Tito, one of her former patients, and the leader of the Rojos. Which meant the attack hadn't been sanctioned. She didn't have to worry about being attacked by them again.

That didn't really make her feel better.

**.**

Lt. Charlotte Peabody came to see her the same day the flowers from Tito arrived. The NYPD lieutenant took a chair at Dylan's bedside and propped her elbows on her knees. Moonlit blue eyes met eyes the color of autumn leaves. Peabody didn't speak. Just waited.

"I can't tell you what happened, Charlie," Dylan murmured.

"Why not? If Tito set it up, hon, you've gotta-"

"He didn't," the psychiatrist interrupted, eyeing the riot of rainbow carnations. "I thought he did, but he didn't. It wasn't sanctioned, and he took care of it. You know how Tito and the other leaders feel about me and the others I work with. Tito wouldn't have done this."

"Then who did?"

Dylan pushed at her hair and tried to only think about the tangles and knots in it, not about what she had to say to one of her oldest friends. She'd been young - twenty-one and in her final year of undergrad - when for her field studies, they'd paired up a young would-be psychiatrist with a young police officer and her senior partner to give both women some hands-on experience with the kids on the streets. One awful, horrible night of pain and grief and coming too late to save a child had cemented mutual respect and affection into a lasting friendship. Now that friendship was about to be tested.

"Members of the Rojos," she said. "Not sent by Tito. It was because I got Lisa into counseling and she decided not to join them. Someone took offense, rallied the Reds and sent them after me. They're..."  _Dead,_  she was about to say, but stopped. Peabody was a cop. How to explain this without dividing her friend's loyalties? "Do you trust me, Charlotte?"

The psychiatrist  _never_  called the police lieutenant "Charlotte," unless things were deadly serious.

There was no hesitation. Eight years of friendship and shared experience had Peabody saying, "Of course."

"Then..." She swallowed hard. Tried to block out the memory of screams and the glottal, wet sounds of men dying under a golem's rage. Fae justice. She knew it well. Instead she focused on the memory of feral gold eyes and the sound of Elven silver singing through the air as Nuada trained. "Trust me when I say that everyone who should be punished... everyone who's responsible... they've been taken care of. I can't tell you how. I can't, Charlie, I'm sorry. But no one is being put in danger by this. Those men will never hurt anyone again. I promise you that."

"Where have you been the last three months?"

"I can't tell you."

"Dylan-"

Blue eyes flashed as she struggled to sit up and look her friend dead in the eye. "Charlie, I can't tell you. I  _won't_  tell you. Okay? I've been somewhere safe and the person there protected me and when I got hurt again they took me to the hospital. That's all I can tell you. Please don't press me. I can't tell you anymore than that. Please, Charlie.  _Please._ "

After a long, long moment, Peabody took Dylan's hand. Squeezed gently. "Do you remember the night you were brought in to talk to that girl? The streetwalker with the rainbow hair, d'you remember? Stormy, I think her name was. Two years ago. She'd killed a man. Shot him."

Dread and sorrow were a cold knot in Dylan's stomach. Where was Peabody going with this? "I remember."

"She got off on self-defense, do you remember? Because when you asked her why she'd shot the guy, she pulled out a picture of a little boy; the one they found at the crime scene, hiding behind the couch in her apartment. He was four years old. And she looked us both in the eye and said, 'I had to protect someone.' You remember that?"

 _I have to protect someone, too,_  Dylan thought. Glacial topaz eyes and a prince's pride, a warrior's honor and a male's snarly stubbornness. Promises given and received on a gurney outside of Saint Vincent's Women's Center.  _I have to protect Nuada. I promised him._

"I remember."

Starry blue locked with tawny autumn. They both remembered. They both understood that sometimes there was the letter of the law... and sometimes there was the spirit of it. And Peabody remembered that Dylan understood not only that there was both, but also when to trust in one, and when to trust in the other. So the lieutenant just squeezed her friend's hand again and left to make her report.

**.**

They let her go after giving her business cards for a very good trauma counselor and a five-star plastic surgeon. The minute her brother helped her into his car, she ripped both cards in half and tossed them into the plastic bag he kept hooked around his gear-shift for trash.

"You don't need a freaking plastic surgeon, anyway," John muttered as he pulled into the glacier-slow traffic. "You've never looked more beautiful."

"Makes me wonder what you thought about how I looked before," Dylan replied dryly, staring out the car window at the city. So much violence in that city. She knew that, knew that monsters both human and fae prowled those lonely but never-empty streets. Those monsters had finally managed to catch her in their sick grip again. She'd been lucky to escape. If it caught her, just one more time... would she be able to get away again? Would there be an Elven prince to save her again?

"I always felt lucky that the prettiest of my eight sisters happened to be my twin," John said with a self-deprecating shrug. "Always had a positive effect on my self-esteem. You're going to LDS Family Services for counseling, though, right?"

She nodded. Absently touched one of the sutured knife wounds on her face that pulled so harshly at her features. "Yeah, it's the best. I'll make an appointment sometime in the next couple weeks."

"Any plans to go back to work? I was thinking in a month or two... unless that's too soon," he added, glancing at her. The government agent couldn't gauge his sister's expression, and he wasn't picking up anything from her with the empathic bond they shared. It was nothing remarkable – sometimes he just knew things about her. Once she'd been about to get a swirly from a school bully, and six-year-old John had known something was wrong even though the teachers kept telling him that she'd only gone to the bathroom and she'd be back soon. But now...

"I was thinking of going into work in three days," she replied, though the thought filled her with sick dread. At his look, she added, "Tomorrow's Saturday. That'd be Monday."

"Right, right." But the half-smile curling the corner of her mouth eased some of his tension.

**.**

She recovered all right enough. There would always be a hitch in her step and she would have to walk with a cane, but she was alive, and she was healed. Well, healed enough in body, that is. What kept going on in her mind was another kettle of fish entirely. _Scarred_ was not really a word she could use for it, but she certainly was not _healed_ either, as it were.

How exactly does one go back to a life that was all routine, after it's been shaken up and turned outside-in? Again?

_Wash the dishes, take out the recycling, feed the cat._

Faeries were real. She could deal with that. It was a fact that she had always known since she was a little girl, ever since she found she could see them and interact with them. Ever since she was essentially punished for not denying them, as everyone around her told her to do so.

_Appointment at 2pm with the boy with the cute little whistling lisp, review client progress and business records for this month, then grocery shopping._

Rape was monstrous. She could even deal with _that._ Somehow her soul was a lot stronger than she supposed that it should be, given the fact that she was only one frail human being - and human beings are nothing if not frail. Her faith and her fortitude seemed to know no bounds, lately, it was a wonder that she wasn't completely shattered still. As if she were being held up by a thread that, amazingly, didn't seem to care enough to break.

_Laundry, call Anya and Joyce to see if we're still on for the out-of-state camping trip this weekend, read tonight's study passages from scripture._

But then she would always come back to the crux of the matter...

_Brush teeth._

Somewhere, out there, was someone _incredible._ A man. An elf. Her rescuer and one-time host.

_Shower._

And unlike so many of his hidden kind, he was neither indifferent towards humans, nor was he fond of them.

_Throw on cozy flannel pajamas._

He _hated_ them, was outright disgusted with them, and had no faith in them at all... Not even after what he had been through with Dylan. Even _knowing_ that she was one of the large few who were quite unlike the vast flocks of "civilized" masses. From what she could make of him, he did not even seem to recognize, nor be able to accept within himself, the fact that there even _was_ such a few that even existed.

She didn't really understand why that hurt. Just that somewhere in her, it did. Very much. It always slid out to stab at her whenever she wasn't looking, or forcing herself to think of something, _anything_ else.

_Breathe in, breathe out._

It hurt even more when the very likely reality that she would probably never even see him again slapped her in the face on top of it all.

_Lie in bed and stare at the ceiling... pointlessly._

**.**

Dylan felt safe in church – up to a point – because of the crowds, the soothing balm of the music, and because she worked with little children for all but the very first hour. No one could even get close enough to hurt her, in the church building. She even managed to relax enough to visit with some of her casual friends. But outside of church, safety was a relative term.

She never got around to setting up that therapy appointment. Every time she thought to do it, the sudden slicing fear sent her racing to her room, where she'd curl up under her blankets and shiver, tears scalding her cheeks. She always tried to recapture that sense of safety from the underground sanctuary. It never came back.

Eventually John called for her. Visiting with the therapist at LDS Family Services should've terrified her, since Brother Kent was a man, but the moment she walked in, she'd felt almost safe. Maybe because she knew this man – he went to her church. She'd babysat his children.

But there was still that  _almost_.

Work was easy, however, because there were three armed security guards outside her office at all times. She worked with a lot of high-risk teens, after all. She'd gone to undergrad school with two of the guards – a burly woman named Natasha, built like a football player, and a former female boxer named Karen. The third, a young Israeli woman named Ziva, had training in Krav Maga. Her personal secretary, Ariel, also had training as a kickboxer: another security blanket.

As the months dragged by and the mortal woman struggled to pull the pieces of her life back together – she started going to women's self-defense classes, and even went back to attending the medieval-style faires often held in Central Park – things began to return to normal. She spent time with her friends and worked with her Sight kids. Babysat for Peri and Kaye. Had a few visits from Renee, her Sight-gifted (and favorite) cousin. Practiced hymns on the piano and, when she had an hour to herself, sometimes just let her fingers glide over the keys and let emotion dictate what sound came out. She couldn't read music very well or play more than one note at a time, but the structureless music helped with the fear a little.

Her free time was also filled with working in her garden, mingling with the fae at the Floating Night Market when called by need or friendship. There was weekly physical therapy, which always left her drained. Twice-weekly, her doctor checked on the progress of her right knee, which had healed incorrectly and so gave her problems. Cortisone shots every few weeks helped a lot, especially when the weather was rough. So did the Vicodin the doctor put her on, but she refused to take the full dose. One pill was enough for her to deal with the pain; anymore made her twitchy and nervous.

Along with the medication, Dylan also got help from a young narasimha healer from the Night Market. While the injured knee would never heal completely, sessions with the healer, Lakshmi, helped ease even more of the pain and stiffness.

The fear was an ever-present shadow in Dylan's life... but with the things she learned in therapy, she ever so slowly learned to work around it. Faith had helped her maintain her sanity in the past. Faith, God, and her twin. Those things helped her now.

And always she thought of Nuada, longed for the peace of the sanctuary, and strove to keep the promise she'd made to him.

**.**

Questions were a nuisance. Even more so when it was his own mind pestering Nuada with them and demanding an answer, just _one,_ that made  _sense._ Questions were like curses; they hovered over you until something practically broke itself in order to resolve it.

And that's what Nuada did now, question and curse, and he could feel his skull almost cracking apart as his thoughts shouted loudly in his brain; whirling around and around, like his lance when he trained, or the delicate gears of a fine piece of goblin-work, like the one that he tried to work on now.

Damn her.

-*Hold down the spring here, turn, flip the fastener*-

_She did nothing wrong, she is blameless._

-*Hook the second lever under the primary gear-work*-

Why did she have to be different?

-*Push down on the catch, making sure the gear winds down with it properly*-

_She has suffered for all of us, because she wanted to help._

-*Tighten the peg there, clamp the catch with the fastener*-

Couldn't he just forget about her?

-*Turn the peg gently, carefully*-

Why couldn't he just throw her in with the rest of the lot and just hate her?

-*Wait for the catch to snap*-

_If anything she was well-worth saving._

**_SHUT! UP!_ **

-*snap*-

Nuada grabbed his lance as quick as lightning and threw it savagely, and it stuck, jutting out of a crack in the stone wall like a silver dart in a wooden plank. And before he put his head in his hands, before he broke himself again against all these thrice-cursed thoughts, the one question that he hated most and always fought to push down and away, out of sight out of mind, whispered delicately up from the quiet black before he could ignore it again.

Why did the idea that he might never see her again leave a bad taste in his mouth and make his insides cold and heavy?

**.**

Once, Dylan saw him. Or thought she did. At the Midsummer Faire, with Joyce and another of her casual friends, Anya. The world was kissed by the gloaming, and she remembered the almost-blueness of Nuada's skin under the decrepit fluorescents of the subway tunnels. Reminded of the fiery gold of his eyes when she looked at the burnished light of the sun's last caress of the horizon. Then a strange warmth bloomed in her chest. Awareness tingled at the nape of her neck. Her eyes flicked to the trees.

Moon-white skin. Eyes like molten gold set in darkness. Hair the color of spun starlight. The swirling silvery mist of barely-there glamour hiding him from human sight and Sight. But not  _her_  Sight. Recognition hit her hard in the chest and she gasped. The constant gnawing fear, always kept banked but never gone, suddenly receded. He was  _right there._  Crown Prince Nuada Silverlance. The Elf that had saved her life in so many ways.

She wanted to break away from the humans milling around the faire. Slide between the twilit trees and run into the woods to him. Talk to him, ask him what he was doing so close to mortals, make sure he was taking care of himself. See for herself if that strained weariness remained in those feral eyes. After all, it had been more than four months since she'd seen him.

"Dylan! Come on! You don't wanna miss this!"

Startled, she glanced over her shoulder toward Anya and Joyce, who were waving her over. Realizing she'd let Nuada out of her sight -  _and all he needs is a split second to completely disappear,_  Dylan thought with what might've been a sizzle of panic - she whirled back around to scan the trees.

Nothing. Gone. No amber eyes that had seen countless centuries. No shadowed mouth or armor like the darkness made tangible. Only empty woods.

"Darn it, Anya, you owe me for this," she muttered, trying to ignore the shards of disappointment and sorrow scraping inside her chest. Instead, she turned to her friends again and went back to the faire.

Yet despite the testament of her eyes - which, gifted by Sight and blessed by a fear-darrig's favor, should've been able to find Nuada amidst the glamour, if the Elven prince remained to be seen at all - Dylan couldn't ignore the feeling that someone was watching her. Studying her. The odd thing about  _that_  was that the sensation didn't frighten her a bit.

In fact, the strange sense of safety she'd felt the moment she'd recognized the prince didn't go away for the rest of the evening.

**.**

Nuada hadn't really been serious that night, when he left her broken and blood-soaked form on the gurney, to be found and returned to her world.

_Found, returned, she wasn't even lost or borrowed to begin with._

Dylan Myers had sworn three things to Prince Nuada that night. The first, and probably the most important, was that she would tell no one of what she had witnessed or of what transpired in the time that they had been each other's company. Secondly, she swore that she would never willingly reveal him or his kind to his enemies. And lastly...

_"I swear, also, that I will do as I have always done – my best – to care for any Fae being I come across. Don't worry about that."_

_For a long moment, there was silence between them. Glacial eyes scanned Dylan's ashen face. Finally, all he said was, "I shall hold you to that."_

He hadn't really meant it.

He told her as an admonishment. As someone would say, "be good, or else," to a child. He'd had no intention of ever looking over her shoulder after that, and every intention of getting on with the rest of forever. Plans to move forward, friends and allies to uphold relations with, and a beloved sister to miss, after all, though one was a fool if they assumed that the royal twins never saw each other in all the centuries that Prince Nuada lived self-exiled from his father's court.

And for a while in recent days, he thought he could finally do that. Thought he could _finally_ get the troublesome human and all the thoughts she brought with her out of his head at last.

Of course, it _would_ be just his luck to end up seeing her again, wouldn't it? Just when he finally felt that he never would, and that he could relegate Dylan Myers to the realm of memory-gone-by. Just when the unbidden headaches that came at certain lulls in his day and his mind slipped back to her had finally stopped altogether. Just when his thoughts were all his own and he could forget her.

Nuada sighed over his drink from where he sat at his out-of-the-way perch, observing the Troll Market without even really seeing it. He knew it was useless to try to retire to his chamber and sleep.

She had been in a park, there were two friends of hers with her. It was for some Old World-themed faire that a group of humans were hosting, though some of the fairer folk were about, himself included, it was interesting to see some of the old arts and dances kept still by these clumsy humans, to say nothing of some of their _quaint_ costumes. Nuada smiled darkly and took another sip from his drink.

Dylan had flowers in her curly brunette hair. They were pink, like the dress worn by the shorter of her two friends, a petite woman with cropped blonde hair and a wide smile. _Joyce_ they called her, and the style of her dress was actually far from any _real_ style that would have been worn in the old ages. Nuada much preferred the more authentic styles of of the gowns that Dylan and her other friend wore, a long-haired brunette who _looked_ Eastern European, but she spoke with the same sort of rapid-fire tongue that was only to be found on the North American west coast. They were laughing, all three of them, and carrying on with having the best old time any three friends should have.

It was when Dylan turned her head away from the lights, looked off in the direction of the twilight and the already-set sun, that his breath caught and he went rigid. Her eyes had flitted away from the heavens and into the trees, and for a split-second she was looking at him. _Right at him._ Her eyes suddenly went wider and her mouth came unconsciously open in a soft, subtle, and silent gasp. Her form was a very picture of stunned stillness.

"Dylan! Come on! You don't wanna miss this!" yelled her brunette friend, and the spell was broken as Dylan snapped her head to look over in the direction and call back. But that was more than Nuada needed to disappear again. He was closer to her now, and so when Dylan looked back to where he had been, searching manically with her eyes for some sign of him being there and finding none, he could hear her mutter, "Darn it, Anya, you owe me for this," before resigning herself to his absence and re-joining her friends.

Nuada's mug had just run dry by this time, so he sighed heavily and pulled himself out of his still-too-vivid recent memory, though it had happened a couple weeks ago. He had been wondering now, what he was going to do, now that Dylan Myers, _drat her,_ was back on his mind again, just when he'd gotten her _out_ of it at last. And he was losing sleep over it, which was never something that any man of any race was wanting to do, usually. Nuada gave another heavy sigh as he made up his mind right there. He had to see her again. He knew all the proper channels to go through for finding her whereabouts...

Nuada did not believe in the promises of man. His distrust of them was what fueled his choice to live in self-exile in the first place, after the truce was made. "Perhaps," he said aloud, "perhaps it is time I... account for the human's promise, and see if she still honors it."

He didn't want to be honest with himself just now.

**.**

New York City in late June wasn't as dark as the Elven prince would've preferred. Where the light of a thousand diamond stars once lit up the night with gentle ambiance, now the garish burning of streetlamps filled the dark. Headlights slashed the midnight blackness. Billboards and advertisements and all sorts of neon and electric lights drove away the fearsome night that the humans feared. A dark hatred filled Nuada's heart as the poisonous light of a passing Chevy truck washed over him. This was what mankind had done to everything they touched – corrupted it, erasing its natural beauty.

Nuada hid in the alleyway, full of garbage and debris, seething. Only rats, cockroaches, and stray cats dared to approach the predatory Elf. With a gentility never shown to the cruel mortals he encountered, the warrior reached down and scratched behind one kitten's ears. The little tom rubbed against his knee-high leather boot, purring.

What was the Elven prince doing here, aboveground, in the city full of foul, pitiful humans and their machines? Even as he stroked the purring beast, Nuada asked himself that very question. He had a destination in mind; of course he did. It would've been foolish to venture among his enemies without a plan – but was it worth it?

Sighing, Nuada slipped deeper into the welcoming shadows, ears pricked and eyes peeled, on the alert for any potential encounters with the humans. Refusing to argue with himself over his decision, the Elf walked onward, long strides towards the edges of the city, where the little parks dotted the landscape. Here the humans had shoved the natural world to the edges of their so-called civilizations, and it was there, nestled among these tiny green oasis, that he intended to go. When he finally reached that place, he sighed again.

 _This is ridiculous,_ he thought _. I'm not here to see_ her _. Why should I hesitate? I wish only to test her word._

The little, old-fashioned house was rather quaint. Carved stone blocks, whitewashed wood and ceramic shingles made up the walls and the roof. Vernal ivy, climbing roses of every color, pale purple wisteria, and white honeysuckle heavy with syrup snaked up the walls, clinging like small children to their mother's skirt. Young fruit and elder trees stood guard at the garden gate and along the fence. Sweet fruit and fragrant flowers and spicy herbs ran wild and happy along the dark, rich soil of the garden. As soon as the Elf pass the little white wood and stone gate, the sweet air surrounded him, drowning out the stench of oil, steel, and pain from the vile human city.

In front of the door – a thick slab of granite on bronze hinges with a brass handle – on the stone step sat a silver bowl filled with creamy milk. Beside it on a ceramic plate lay a loaf of fresh, brown bread studded with nuts and dried fruit. The city pigeons and even the stray cats had already found the food, but others had found the offering as well. Exclaiming to each other in their lilting, chirping language, several young piskeys and a few homeless brownies scooped up tiny handfuls of milk and sipped daintily, not letting even the tiniest drop spill from their fingers.

What kind of human left gifts to the Wee Folk in this day and age? And in real silver and porcelain vessels, to avoid any possible contact with the burning lead and iron or noxious plastic that infiltrated nearly every part of the human cities? For some, like the brownies and piskeys, even touching those human metals could leave scorching burns or make the tiny fae ill. Other, stronger faeries could handle it, but were made uncomfortable. Still others merely found the contamination inconvenient. Only the rare bogle or a fae royal remained unaffected by iron and lead.

At his feet, two of his own piskeys – Iseult and Culhwch – scurried forward and peered in the large, arching window beside the front door. A shiver ran up Culhwch's spine, and Nuada knew something was amiss. He ran to their side, all doubts and irritation vanished like evanescent mist, and gazed beyond the un-curtained panes of glass... to the leanashe looming like a demon over Dylan and the tiny, bleeding beast in her arms.

Inside the prince, a struggle began.

A leanashe attacks a mortal, and what was he supposed to do? He wondered, but already knew the answer: nothing. The humans were the enemies of all fey races. The seductive faery woman was probably avenging a grievance. The leanashe were jealous, easily provoked. Someone like Dylan, knowing all she knew of the Pobel Vean, should've considered this. As wise in the ways of Faerie as the mortal woman claimed to be, no action of hers should've been able to anger one of his people.

The human was of course to blame.

_But Dylan... but she..._

The mortal who'd tended his wounds, nearly killing herself more than once to save his life, now lay in the grasp of a brutal death. This human had stitched his wounds while she bled nearly to death, ignoring her own pain to treat him. She'd braved his wrath to care for the infection brought on by lead- and iron-poisoning, despite his cruel attitude and cold manners. She'd even cleaned his sanctuary, ridding it of the stink of iron-laced blood staining the stone floor. As a child, Dylan had saved one of his people, doing what even some adults would consider too much for someone older and stronger than she'd been then. This human woman had been incarcerated and tortured at the behest of her own flesh and blood for her belief in and protectiveness towards the fae.

Was she truly to blame for the leanashe's wrath?

For the first time in his life, Prince Nuada, son of King Balor, couldn't decide what to do. If he allowed the human to be slain by this fey creature, it was no more than a human deserves. But not this human. Not Dylan, who had a heart of the Old World, without the predatory sins of most of the children of Adam.

Yet he couldn't attack a faery creature to save a mortal unless he knew for certain the faery was in the wrong. It went against everything Nuada believed in. The humans were the enemy of Faerie.

But to let Dylan die, when he could've saved her, after all that had happened... his honor rebelled.

_A prince without personal honor cannot hope to be an honorable ruler to his people, and a dishonorable prince brings shame to his kingdom._

Dylan's words floated back to him from the dregs of his memory. The prince of Bethmoora clenched his teeth and clenched his fist to keep from drawing his lance. He was a Child of the Earth, and a prince. If he used his power, he could enter this dwelling without invitation and save Dylan from the enraged creature trying to murder her. Then the leanashe would stop this stupid assault and he could resolve the problem.

Growling, " _oscailte,_ " he kicked the door and the little stone slab slammed inward, startling the inhabitants within the cottage. The tiny, bleeding beast mewed plaintively. The mortal's eyes filled with a faint glimmer of hope... and a nearly overwhelming fear. As for the leanashe...

With a shrieking cry, the vengeful fey woman launched herself at Nuada, claws extended toward his eyes.

"Prince Nuada!"

He was, first and foremost, a warrior, and he was under attack. Nothing could ever change who and what he was. Thus, when the leanashe launched herself toward the son of the One-Armed King of Elfland, Nuada didn't even have to think about what to do. He merely reacted.

In a flash, his pale hand gripped the dark hilt of his lance. He ripped it from the scabbard on his back and unsheathed the glinting blade of star-bright metal. Twirling the pole weapon over his head, he dipped the spear tip and sliced the fey woman's shoulder as he stepped out of the way of her mad charge. She tripped and stumbled. Turning around, her dilated sea-green eyes raked the room for the Elf known as Silverlance. When they clapped on Nuada's wary, tense form, she lunged for him again.

"Stop!" Dylan's voice was tight with fear. It hauled on Nuada's focus, trying to realign it so that his attention was riveted on the terrified mortal. The human woman called to the furious leanashe, "He's the prince of Bethmoora! Stop! Don't hurt him!"

"Shut up, you human filth! I knew my lord was right! This... this  _scum_  is a traitor to the denizens of twilight. His blood is  _mine!_ " The fey woman shrieked the word "mine" and launched herself like a hissing, spitting wildcat at the fey prince. Dodging, he brought up his lance and sliced the back of the creature's thigh, cutting the hamstring. She collapsed to the floor, wailing. Rolling over, she struggled to push herself at least semi-upright.

In an instant, Nuada's boot pressed down hard between her breasts, shoving her to the floor, his spear at her throat. Iseult and Culhwch chittered at the enraged faery on the floor. The leanashe shrieked and hissed at Nuada, but he simply ignored her and turned to Dylan. When he saw the rock clenched in her upraised fist, he couldn't prevent the smirk from stealing over his mouth or his eyebrow from quirking. If humans were only as fast as Elves, the mortal might've managed to brain the faery woman with her stone before Nuada could've restrained her.

Nuada nodded to Dylan, who dropped the rock to the floor and scooped the bleeding beast – the Elf saw it was a small mewing kitten, its eyes barely open for more than a week or two – into her arms.

"Are you injured?" Nuada demanded.

The human woman said softly, "Nothing that won't heal in a couple of days. And Bat's fine. He tore out a couple claws attacking... her," Dylan indicated the fey creature with a nod. "That's why he's bleeding a bit. But they'll grow back. He's young and healthy. Are you hurt, Your Highness?" Her eyes skimmed him from head to foot, looking for any injury he might try to hide from her. But she saw nothing.

"I am unharmed. Now," Crown Prince Nuada Silverlance snarled, looking down at the leanashe. He'd expected the mortal's inquiry into his status. So that she would have no excuse to henpeck him, he'd done his best to remain unharmed. "You, wretch. Why have you attacked me? Twice this mortal identified me. You even acknowledged that you knew me. Why did you persist in your attack?"

The leanashe did her best to spit on his foot. Then she hawked a gob of thick, snotty saliva onto the polished wooden floor.

"How... why... ugh!" Dylan sputters. "Why do people  _do_ that? Now I have to wash that. What is your  _problem?"_

"Prince Nuada is a traitor to Bethmoora and all the Twilight Kingdoms." To the Elf, she snarled, "I wanted to kill you and the creature you betray our kind with. How dare you take a mortal into your bed? It's no better than rutting with an animal!"

For a long, tense, still moment, the Elven warrior wondered what it would feel like to plunge his lance into the leanashe's belly and pin her to the floor like an insect, watching her writhe as she died. He, the Silverlance, bed a human?  _Disgusting_. Eyes of glacial bronze tinged blood-red with fury stabbed into the fey woman's face, trapping her gaze. The leanashe saw the hatred overflowing in Nuada's heart. Rage etched lines of darkness and death across his white face. Black lips like dead flesh pressed together, and the faery woman knew the prince struggled against the vile curses waiting to gush forth. Fear slithered into her belly. He would kill her if she pushed him further.

"Who has been saying these things?" The prince of Bethmoora demanded at last. Dylan shivered and held the tiny black kitten a little tighter. She'd only heard Nuada speak so once before – to the men that had attacked and raped her. And  _they_  were all dead.

"That's a secret I shall take to the grave," the leanashe spat at him.

"Very well," the Silverlance growled, and raised his spear high to plunge it into the faery creature. He began to thrust downward, when –

"Nuada, no, please!  _Please!"_

The prince tensed, the spear halting less than a hair's breadth from the leanashe's chest. Snarling under his breath, Nuada slid his eyes – darkened by hate and rage to sanguine red – to glare at the mortal standing with a kitten in one hand, an upraised stone back in the other. How dare she? How dare she try to stop him from dealing out justice? From defending his honor? Fury simmered in his veins, infusing like poison into his body. His grip on the black-handled lance tightened until his knuckles were bleached the color of bones. He would teach her. He would show this mortal that no human could command Nuada Silverlance-

"Please..." The mortal whispered, eyes beseeching. "Don't kill her. You can't."

"I can," Nuada growled through clenched teeth. "Can, and will. And if you stand in my way, then  _you_ will die as well."

"Fine," Dylan snapped, setting the kitten down behind her on the floor. Dropping the rock, she stepped as close to the Elven warrior as she dared with the leanashe still lying on her floor. Every instinct screamed at her to run, but she couldn't. This was  _wrong_. She could feel that, deep inside. If they did this, it would come back to bite them. So despite the fear, she forced herself to challenge the prince. "Then kill me. But that won't change the fact that killing her is wrong, Your Highness."

"She tried to kill you! Are you mad?"

"Maybe." The mortal crossed her arms over her chest. Inside, she just wanted to run into her room and crawl into her closet and hide, but... but... "But shouldn't she be tried for her crime instead of just... just murdered?"

"It wouldn't  _be_ murder, Dylan. It would be protecting ourselves. You're a human. In the eyes of many the Fair Folk, she's committed no crime. In fact, by defending you, it is  _I_  who've committed the crime – fighting a fey in defense of a mortal without proof that the faerie was in the wrong. They could drag me back from my exile to have me punished, perhaps even executed for such if my father doesn't intercede for me. And if he does, she will die anyway. Will you condemn me without reason or justice?"

The mortal locked eyes with the Elven prince for a long moment. In that instant, something was decided. Nuada nodded once, and Dylan turned to the leanashe pinned to the floor by Nuada's boot.

"Make a choice," Dylan said. She felt sick. What would the creature do? If she chose wrongly... what was the right thing to do? To kill, or not to kill? In battle, that choice was clear. But this wasn't battle. What was right? "Return to your master with a failure, but swearing on the living Darkness not to mention the prince was here tonight, or die by the prince's hand."

The fey woman stared at the mortal in front of her, astonished and a little disturbed. This was the woman who, if her master was right, was the mistress of the crown prince. This mortal, who gave her the choice between a hard, brutal death and an easy one, though she didn't know it. Hate and astonishment filled the leanashe's heart. But more than anything, hatred.

The leanashe made her choice.

Dylan closed her eyes until the fey was gone, and all that remained was Prince Nuada, watching her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References Made In This Chapter:  
> \- Moontime is the politest, least disgusting term I've ever read for menstruation. It's from The Black Jewels by Anne Bishop.  
> \- Deseret Industries is a real-life charity organization much like Good Will.  
> \- A golem (pronounce Goh-Lemm, not to be confused with Gollum, is a stone, clay, earth, or mud elemental from Jewish mysticism, inscribed with a Hebrew symbol that will bring it to life. I expect it was one of those "in case of a pogrom (holocaust), wake this up" type deals in their fairy tale collection.  
> \- Rutting is a word for having sex. It's considered insulting when applied to a man, because it's usually applied to animals, like pigs.  
> \- Nuada leaving Dylan on the gurney in front of the hospital is inspired by one of my favorite episodes of Gargoyles (an episode that shows you why you are not supposed to play with guns).  
> \- The visual imagery of Nuada as a white lion comes from Jim Henson's The Storyteller, in the episode "The White Lion." Originally Nuada kind of reminded me of a sexy, fur-less Puss in Boots (go ahead and laugh) but the dream sequence (not included here) was very similar to Belle in Beauty and the Beast running from the wolves through the woods and being rescued by the Beast. Nuada as a lion fit way better.  
> \- LDS Family Services is a global social service network that deals with all kinds of therapies as well as adoption and family counseling.  
> \- People actually used to leave cream/milk and bread or other treats for faeries.  
> \- The bowl is silver because plastics and certain metals can make Wee Folk ill.  
> \- Piskeys are a type of pixie from Cornwall (pixies themselves being English).  
> \- Iseult is the original version of Isolde (as in Tristan and Isolde). The story of Tristan & Iseult is set in Cornwall. As the piskeys are Cornish, I figured it's a good name for a female piskey.  
> \- Culhwch in mythology is the son of Cilydd ap Celyddon and Goleuddydd; he's cousin of Arthur Pendragon and the protagonist of Culhwch and Olwen (the earliest of the medieval Welsh tales usually, but erroneously, referred to collectively as The Mabinogion). It was a sufficiently alien name (not to mention Welsh, which the Cornish often employ) for the other piskey.  
> \- The Twilight Realm is another name for the world of Faerie.  
> \- Pobel Vean means "little people" in Cornwall. Another name for faeries.  
> \- "Puttock" is a word from medieval times that means "slut."  
> \- The kitten, Bat, is a cameo from one of my favorite stories as a kid, "A Puma and a Panther." I can't remember who it's by, but it's in the anthology Catfantastic II. The so-called "puma" is named Pumpkin and the "panther" is named Bat.


	9. Cheese, Apple, Bread

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having convinced himself to visit Dylan after months apart and saving her from a bloodthirsty fae, Nuada considers what he's supposed to do with this mortal...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter contains references to rape, blood, torture, war, injuries, prescription painkillers, assault, flashbacks, badly-healed bone breaks, alcohol, racism, genocide, religious-based persecution, incest, emotional parental abuse, and PTSD.
> 
> About Brownies: Brownies are Scottish household faeries who do the housekeeping in exchange for gifts or treats – usually honey, milk (or other dairy products), or bread. They usually only work at night and do not like to be seen. It is said humans with the Sight can see them, but some brownies possess the ability to remain invisible even under the Sight. If the gifts given are referred to as payment, the brownie will get angry and leave. He will also leave if he is abused. An angry brownie will become a boggart (wrecking the house, souring the milk, etc), but if appeased in some way, can return to being a brownie again. Never, ever, ever thank a brownie; it will be forced to leave whoever thanked it, no matter what it wants to do.

**A Short Tale of Visitations, Beliefs, and Stories**

What are you  _doing_ here?" Dylan whispered, taking in the prince in his dark green silks and brown leather belt, vambraces and boots. When topaz eyes widened, dusty gold brows lifting, the mortal hastened to add, struggling for Old World formality, "I mean…I'm honored by your presence, Your Highness." She dipped a curtsy, made awkward by the bundle of mewing fur twining between her legs and the twinge of pain in her right knee. "But I had no reason to look for your coming. Why have you come?" She paused, swallowed. "Am I to die, then?"

If she was, then all right. She didn't fear death, only the pain that invariably came with it; but the Elven warrior would make her death quick and painless—his honor demanded that much. Then she wouldn't be trapped in this world anymore. The pains and sorrows of mortality would be gone, and she wouldn't have to be afraid anymore.

"If I intended to kill you," Nuada said coolly, "I would've simply allowed the leanashe to do it for me. Why do you think I would slay you? Have you broken your promise to me?"

Dylan opened her mouth, ready to bite off some snippy remark—hadn't he learned yet that she was trustworthy? Why had he let her live these past four months, if he didn't trust her?—when she saw the faint smile curving one corner of his black-lipped mouth. And his eyes…they weren't bronze with fury anymore, but pale as yellow diamonds. Could it be…that the son of King Balor was jesting with her?

She tried to remember the months in his subterranean sanctuary while they'd both recovered from their injuries. Had the Elven prince ever cracked a real smile (one that didn't involve him mocking her)? Not that she could remember.

"You know I haven't," she said, hiding her bewilderment behind civility and a blank face. "Anyway, you're welcome in my home, Your Highness. Sit, please."

Nuada sank gracefully into a large, brown leather armchair as the human woman who continued to baffle him put another log on the fireplace and sank onto a cushioned stool near the hearth.

Automatically, Dylan had mimicked the positions she and the prince had often found themselves in during their time in the sanctuary—he in a chair, she practically at his feet. Before it hadn't bothered him, but now it made him uncomfortable. She wasn't a servant. She wasn't his equal by any stretch—she was human, with burning iron in her blood and a hole in her heart that nothing would ever be able to fill—but Dylan Myers was no one's servant.

"How…have you fared, since last we met?" He asked awkwardly.

Dylan smiled and shrugged nonchalantly. "I've been well, thank you." She made a point to speak politely, faintly imitating Nuada's speech patterns. Things were different, now that she was no longer his healer and he no longer her patient. She wasn't comfortable around him, not at all. What surprised her, though, was that although he made her nervous, he didn't frighten her in any way. "My wounds have all healed," the mortal woman continued. "I have to walk with a cane during cold or wet days, though."

The Elven prince frowned. "A cane?" His eyes registered the new calluses on her palms, then darted to the gleaming wooden cane leaning against the hearth stones. "Why?"

"I broke my patella—my kneecap." Dylan frowned, chewed her lip, not meeting the glacial amber eyes of the crown prince of Bethmoora. "I sort of remember falling—I tripped and smashed my knee into the pavement. It hurt, but it didn't  _feel_  broken. Of course, I'd never broken a joint before," she added wryly, making a face. "So what would I know?"

"You've broken other bones," he said. It wasn't a question. His eyes roved over her face, a trifle pale as memories of the night they'd met tried to surface. The human sank her teeth into her bottom lip and nodded.

After a moment, she continued, voice trembling and slightly raspy, "It was just a hairline fracture, but the way it healed after I left your sanctuary means it will pain me in bad weather and it's really stiff when I sit in the same position for too long. And apparently stairs are my new worst enemy," she added with a slight smile.

"Willow bark tea will help with the pain," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "I use it when…"

Realizing what he'd been about to say, he stopped abruptly and looked away from her, into the fire. This human, so fey-like in her emotions, in her compassion for others, was dangerous. He had to remember that. She'd helped him, saved his life on multiple occasions, cared for him in his illness, and they were allies—of a sort. That didn't make them friends.

Still…it was such a small thing to tell her…

"Yes?" Dylan murmured, tilting her head to the side. Several dark curls fell across her face, hiding her expression but revealing her brilliant blue eyes. The paleness of her skin was stark against the darkness of her brown hair, even in the golden firelight. "You use it when?"

"When my arm aches during snow storms. I took a barbed arrow through it when I was young."

If she'd offered pity—pity from a  _human!_  Revolting!—he might've forgotten the history between them and attacked her. However, she merely stroked the little black kitten cradled in her arms and said softly, voice companionable, "That must've been very painful, Your Highness."

He shrugged, disliking the sense of comradeship tugging at him. Nuada had only come to check that Dylan kept her promise to him to aid the Fair Folk of New York City. Seeing the vicious leanashe ready to slaughter the human who'd proved herself more honorable than—bitter, sickening thought—some Elves he knew, such as Eamonn, had turned the reconnaissance foray into a rescue mission and social visit.

Faery law was very definite on politeness. Dylan had offered him a chair—he had to take it. And now that he'd sunk into the thing and propped his boots on the velvet-covered footstool in front of it, his muscles—sore from weapons' training, tired and worn from the very last vestiges of illness—told him in no uncertain terms that if he attempted to rise anytime soon, they would be unhappy.

"Warriors suffer many such wounds," he said, frowning into the fire. The Elven prince didn't wish to look at Dylan, at the expressive blue eyes that reminded him of those nights when she'd woken in the underground sanctuary, sobs stifled to hide her fear from him. He didn't wish to see the fire dancing in her eyes. He frowned more fiercely. "It is the way of things."

"A-are you thirsty?" A sliver of old fear pierced her heart when she saw the way Nuada's eyes had darkened to bronze as he stared into the fire. "H-h-hungry? I have fresh apples from the tree in my garden, and cheese from the Farmer's Market. I have somewhat fresh milk, too—it's only from this morning—and I made bread when I got home from…"

She'd been about to say "my therapy appointment," but let the thought trail away instead. The mortal knew there was nothing wrong with needing therapy—she was still plagued by hellish nightmares of the attack on the nights when no slumber-fae stayed beneath her roof. Despite the semi-weekly visits from the local Wee Winks to give her sweet dreams (and a few  _bakū_  from the East Village to eat her nightmares), there'd yet to be an end to the new night terrors, and the old ones that stank of childhood memory had never been eradicated.

And she never took the subway anymore. Her brother drove her around, or Ariel, her private secretary, did. The smell of disinfectant always made the mortal sick now, after her stay in the hospital. Any sort of cleaning solution did, so she'd bought potted roses and lilies and scattered them throughout the cottage to remind herself of the smell of the fayre sanctuary. She'd had new bronze and brass bolts put on the heavy granite front door, but that still didn't ease the feeling of being hunted, stalked. Her counselor had used words like "shell-shocked" and "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder." Words that, as a youth psychiatrist, she was familiar with.

Of course she needed therapy. Dylan knew the only reason she hadn't run back to find Nuada after enduring her days in the hospital was the strength she'd gained from relying very heavily on her faith.

And, she reminded herself with a slight inward smile as brittle as glass, because she didn't remember where the sanctuary actually  _was_. And because trying to get there would have taken her through the concrete labyrinth beneath the city, and the wolves would have…would have…

"Bring the apples and the cheese," Nuada said, breaking through the thin shell of fear. One glance at his pale eyes and the wisps of panic vanished like mist on the breeze as memories of where she was and who she was with returned. The Elven prince continued, "I will show you…something. Bring the bread, as well. I…have brought drink to share with you."

That wasn't entirely accurate; he'd planned on bringing the stuff back to his underground lair, not sharing it with a human. But as his father often said, it was dull to eat without drinking, or vice-versa.

"Bring two cups."

Surprised, Dylan went into the kitchen to get a pair of polished wooden cups, the small basket of apples, the wheel of sharp cheddar cheese in its little cloth sack, and the small loaves of bread she'd made to give the local Wee Folk. Since nursing the demi-merrow back to health as a child, she'd always done her best to leave milk and bread for the Faerie Folk whenever possible, as organic and lacking in chemicals as she could manage. She knew from experience that the bread would be fine. The "lesser" Fae couldn't handle as much contact with "human metals" and chemicals as a fayre like Nuada could. She hoped the apples and cheese would do, as well.

The human woman carried everything back into the living room and stared at Nuada seated in front of the hearth on her handmade, red and gold rag-rug. A small bottle sat on the floor beside him. When he saw her staring, the prince gestured imperiously for her to sit on the floor across from him. He plucked an apple from the basket and pulled out a small knife from the leather belt at his waist, which he used to cut a slice from the shiny red fruit.

A frisson of fear slithered up Dylan's spine as the light glinted off the blade— _phantom pain burning across her face, a pain-bright edge slicing repeatedly across her unprotected mouth_ —but then the crown prince of Bethmoora proceeded to show a mortal woman how to make roasted apple and cheese sandwiches. The crackling fire, the cadence of an Elven voice, and the sheer nonthreatening quality of his movements calmed her suddenly-racing heart.

Dylan fought to hide her surprise as Nuada explained what to do. While in his subterranean sanctuary, she and Nuada had shared meals often enough, but usually in absolute silence and with no real interaction. She'd often eaten seated on the floor, leaning against the wall, while he'd lounged in the chair. The current meal was mostly silent, punctuated only by brief comments from the taciturn prince, yet the feel of the situation was different. That tiny curve of the mouth had returned to Nuada's face, and he was much closer to her than he'd ever been before, except when she'd been doctoring his wounds…or that first full night, long ago, when he'd pushed her hair aside to witness for himself the grief and pain reflected in her eyes.

The human took a bite of the sandwich. She'd never had cheese and apple slices together before, but surprisingly, the sharp cheddar went well with the crisp, sweet apples. And the wheat bread was just the right neutral flavor to blend the two. The mortal made a small sound of surprise, glancing up at Nuada.

"It's good," she mumbled behind the hand covering her half-full mouth.

"Give me your cup." He poured a very small amount of golden liquid into the wooden vessel. Dylan brought it to her nose and inhaled. It smelled sweet and sparkling-crisp, like freshly-pressed apple juice, but…

"This isn't alcoholic, is it, Your Highness? Or enchanted?"

Nuada shook his head, though she could tell he was puzzled. Dylan only shrugged in a silent  _bottoms' up_  gesture, and took a sip, smiling when the delicious liquid flowed across her tongue and made her taste buds tingle. It was like swallowing down the moon, or melting into the ocean surf at dawn. The life essence of spring, the warmth of summer, the sweet spice of autumn and the sharpness of winter. Life and magic and joy.

"Wow. That stuff is…wow." She realized she felt giddy and blinked. "Sure that stuff's not alcoholic?"

"It isn't; humans may drink it. There's a brownie in your cottage," the Elven prince said suddenly. He'd realized the place where the leanashe had spit on the floor was shiny and clean again. Not only that, but his boot had somehow been polished while he was unaware.

Dylan jolted in surprise and scanned her home. "There is?" She cried, her eyes darting to potential hidey-holes. "Where?"

"He hides from you; he knows you've the Sight. But this cottage is one of the few places the Fair Folk can come and live comfortably."

Nuada nodded toward the brass kettle on the hob and then gestured around the living room. Not a scrap of iron, lead or steel to be found in the place. All of her fixtures were brass, copper, bronze or silver. She'd done it on purpose, the prince knew, to make a sanctuary for the Tylwyth Teg and their ilk. The walls (and he suspect the foundation) were not concrete, but actual quarried granite held together with mortar. The pipes in the walls were copper and brass. Even the nails he'd spotted in the timbers of the ceiling were made of brass, titanium, and hardened wood instead of iron.

It was just like her to live in a place like this.

He smelled no cleaning chemicals, only the sharp undertaste of vinegar on the air that only a preternatural nose would pick up, masked as it was by the spice of herbs and the perfume of roses and lilies. Did she use vinegar to clean? Most humans would've found the scent unpleasant, but it only served to remind him how this extraordinary mortal had dedicated her life to helping the Bright Ones.

For the first time since meeting her, the prince considered Dylan's fate when he discovered the location of the third Golden Crown piece and brought the Golden Army to life. Would he go out of his way to keep her safe from them?

And she spoke fondly of her twin brother. Nuada knew what it was, to live without the constant contact from your other half. He didn't know if his sanity would hold, if Nuala were ever slain. Their bond was such that it seemed unlikely. And that was if he didn't die himself. What would her brother's death in the coming war do to the human who had saved him?

He could not afford to think about that now. His people needed to be freed of mortal oppression. Even his alliance with Dylan, forged out of desperation, honor, and mutual need, paled dramatically in comparison to the importance of waging war on humanity to free the Fayre before it was too late to salvage his people's lives. If he saved two humans, two who had done all in their power to help his people…

Even considering the idea surprised him. He owed Dylan's brother—John, she'd called him—nothing at all. But he owed the mortal woman seated beside him, munching an apple and cheese sandwich and sipping Elven drink. She'd saved him over and over again, had tried to save him tonight from the leanashe. Her, he would not allow to die.

But what of her brother? Would his death drive her mad? And what of her sisters?

"I suppose I'm lucky  _mo duinne_  didn't try to take my eye out," Dylan said, breaking him from his dark thoughts.

He arched one slender eyebrow at her.  _Mo duinne,_  she'd said. "You know that story, then? And where did you learn the Old Tongue?"

"Gaelic?" The human shrugged. "High school and college. In order to get into a university, I had to take two years of a foreign language. I was still in the institution at the time, but it was state law that they had to educate us (if we 'behaved,' which by then I did, usually). One of the teachers they brought in had studied Irish history, specifically, and the Gaelic culture, and taught me the language."

She shrugged again. "My parents were certain I'd never master it enough to pass the final exams, so they made me take Spanish, too, but I just couldn't get the hang of Spanish for some reason. I flunked that horribly and passed Gaelic. It's been quite useful in dealing with a lot of the Folk," she added, "which was one reason I wanted to take it. When I got out of the institution and went to college, they offered Gaelic, and in order to get into medical school, I needed a four-year degree, which also required two years of a language. I ended up minoring in Gaelic culture and mythology."

"Minoring?" Nuada asked, his mind buzzing with the strange words. Before his moons-long stay with Dylan in his subterranean sanctuary, he would've balked at showing any possible indication of ignorance to a human. Now, he munched an apple and waited for her explanation. The prince didn't realize, but Dylan did, that this meant he actually trusted her—a little bit, at any rate.

"In college, the main thing you study is called your major. For me, it was psychology—how the mind works—and medicine, so I could be a psychiatrist. You're also supposed to study something else, though not as much, and that's called your minor. So I mainly studied to be a psychiatrist—a healer of the mind and heart—and to keep from going crazy myself, I studied the culture and language of Gaelic Ireland and Scotland, so I could learn more about your people." Smiling now, her expression wistful, Dylan added, "I never wanted to forget the Fair Folk, or what they'd done for me, what they'd shown me and taught me. Your people have enriched my life in so many wonderful ways, my prince. It's the least I can do."

And she'd never wanted anyone to experience the things she had—being locked up, tortured, slowly poisoned over more than a decade because she Saw things others never could. Fairies. Faeries. The fae. That was why she'd decided to become a psychiatrist; so she could prevent such a thing.

Even with that drive, even with the help of the Hidden Folk in return for her help, she wouldn't have been able to do it, wouldn't have been able to maintain a grip on her sanity and not only survive, but thrive, if not for five things: sheer desperation, the fact that her twin brother needed her when she got out of the institution more than she'd ever needed him while inside it; government aid in getting through eight years of school in seven and getting a job at an already-established practice, not to mention putting her cottage together, because she was John's sister and John was their golden boy for what he'd managed to do at only twelve years old; help from her Uncle Thaddeus and Aunt Nimah when things got desperate; and lastly (but most importantly), relying on Heavenly Father's aid to get her through the grief and pain and fear and that one hellish year…

Remembering where she was, her smile became rueful and she rubbed a spot under her chin as she added, "And yes, Your Highness, I know the story. 'Which eye gives ye sight o' me, human?'" Dylan intoned, her voice dropping an octave. Nuada glanced at her sharply, realizing she'd heard the question before, because she'd mimicked a fear-darrig's Scottish brogue almost exactly. Her next words confirmed it. "I've  _lived_  that story."

For a fleeting moment, Nuada thought about giving her the mark of Bethmoora—a small thing, visible to any fae. The peaceful Eildon tree, Bethmoora's crest in peacetime, it would shine through mud, paint, cosmetics, blood, or any other earthly cover-up, visible only to the Bright Ones and those mortals with the Sight. It could only be given or removed by magic, by one of royal blood. If he gave her that mark, she wouldn't have to worry about having her eyes plucked out, or being blinded by the swipe of claw or talon, for having the Sight.

She'd seen a fear-darrig. How had she survived such an encounter with the fearsome Scottish bogle?

But no, he thought, watching the way she moved to follow his example with more apples, cheese and bread. No, she was mortal. While he didn't feel the choking revulsion he once had in her presence, it didn't change the fact that Dylan had iron in her blood. He wouldn't give a  _human_  a mark of safety. As one who had lived with the Sight for nearly thirty years, she could take care of herself.

_Take care of herself…_

Had she killed the bogle? It would've been in self-defense, perhaps, and a very one-sided fight, but…Fury rippled through him at the thought of any human laying malicious hand on one of his people, much less slaying it.

"How did you escape the fear-darrig?" He asked coldly, watching for signs of deceit. Would she lie to him? If she did, would he know? The crown prince of Bethmoora didn't understand why, but the idea of pulling the information from the mortal woman's mind didn't sit well with him.

"May I please tell you another time?" Dylan whispered, staring into the fire with sightless eyes. He could tell from her voice and gaze that she was no longer in the cottage with him; her mind had wandered back through memory to the meeting with the bloodthirsty fear-darrig. She rubbed at the strange, pale scar at the top of her throat, as if stroking a protective talisman. "It's a rather long tale, and, if it pleases you, Your Highness, I don't want to tell it tonight. It was pretty awful. If you truly wish it, I would of course be honored to tell you the story, but I fear the words weigh heavily on my heart along with my weariness. I didn't kill him, but the story is difficult for me."

The Elven prince stared at her, marveling. She had the tongue of a courtier! Where had she learned to speak with such courtesy, picking her words the way jewelers picked precious stones? He remembered what she'd said about honor, back in the underground haven, and how he'd wondered where she'd learned such wisdom, such slyness, how to twist her words into such complicated knots. Now, he stared at this human, feeling a buzz of irritation and puzzlement as she deftly evaded answering his question.

Yet, he also remembered a human,  _this_  human, waking in the dark, her fear so great it threatened to choke them both, as the dregs of nightmares rolled away from her mind and she pulled herself back to reality. The absolute terror in her eyes had left him stricken. That fear had dragged memories of Nuala, watching as a little girl as their mother was raped to death, into the forefront of his mind. He didn't want to taste that fear ever again.

"Some other night, then," he said gruffly.

"Thank you," Dylan murmured. Bright blue eyes flicked to his face, scanning his expression, before darting back to the flames. After several moments of heavy silence, she asked suddenly, "What can I do…to make the brownie come out?"

"You would force him?" The crown prince of Bethmoora demanded, glaring with eyes like amber ice from black sockets. The heat of molten bronze began creeping in at the edges of his eyes, but Dylan didn't flinch away from his ire, merely shook her head.

"I don't want anything to be afraid of me. I would never harm  _mo duinne_ ," she added softly. "I don't want him to feel like he can't show himself."

 _Mo duinne_ , she'd said again. Gaelic for "my brown one." He'd only needed to tell her the brownie had attached himself to her home, and she'd taken the little fey into her heart.

He shook his head. She was mortal, he could smell that sharp tang of human metals from the blood in her veins, but she didn't behave the way humans did. She was kind—he'd seen the bowl of fresh and the still-warm loaf of bread on her porch steps. What mortal thought to leave sustenance for the Little People in this day and age? And in the city, full of burning metal and noxious gas!

"Why do you live here?" He demanded suddenly.

She blinked, startled. "Pardon?"

"You've settled yourself in the one speck of nearly-pure land in the middle of this filth-ridden mortal city, creating a haven for those who fear the touch of iron and smog." He shook his head. It wasn't admiration—not for a human—but it held incredulity and exasperation in equal measure. "Why? Why settle here, in this gods-forsaken city of mortal filth?"

The smile the mortal woman gave the crown prince was sad, so very sad. He'd seen sorrow that deep before, of course—on the faces of dryads who knew the human poisons were killing their trees, on the nymphs whose waters were slowly fouled by toxins, on his sister and father as their people were thrust further and further into twilight and death. Where did such sorrow come from in a human?

"I moved here as soon as I finished college, so I could build this place, because I know the Gentry are running out of space, if they're not out of room already. Humanity has pushed them to the very edges, cracks, and crannies of the world. They need a safe place, at least the small ones. I'm sure something like a fragglewump can take care of itself," she added, smiling crookedly, and Nuada remembered what he'd thought of Dylan only minutes before:  _she can take care of herself_. Did the human envy the Fayre who were strong enough to care for themselves?

"I know a lot of fae adapt to the iron of the cities. But the small ones," she continued, "the Wee Folk, like  _mo duinne_ , and the others who come to my door for milk and honey-baked bread, for porridge and cream…they're the only ones who can fit in such a small space as this. They're the ones who can't survive this city unless they can find a place to regain their strength. I try to provide such a place. Too many of your people have already faded from this world."

He shook his head again. "Are you certain you're mortal?"

She laughed. It wasn't shrill, like the cackling he heard from many mortals, or tinged with hysteria, as her past laughter beneath the subway had been. He realized with a start that he'd never heard Dylan laugh this way before.

"I might have a trace of Faerie blood from a bazillion generations ago—probably lots of people do, from before humans were all such dunderheads," the mortal woman added, smiling wider, "but for all intents and purposes, my prince, I'm human. I'll even be totally honest and tell you not all my food is natural. I'm a slave to this gorgeous tomato bisque they serve at this restaurant about ten minutes away. It's my favorite food. And I adore French toast with powdered sugar and strawberry syrup."

"Really? Tomato bisque?" He understood that, though "French toast" eluded him. Toast made in France? Did they do it in some special way?

"Yeah. Sorry. Even I'll eat processed junk, though not often. Once or twice a month, maybe. Usually ice cream when I'm depressed. I'm definitely human." Dylan sighed, frowning. "I'm not even psychic. At least…"

"Yes?"

"There's a slight connection to my twin brother, John." Dylan noticed Nuada stiffen, and fought her own reaction of flinching away from him. She ought to trust him by now. The blond warrior wouldn't hurt her, especially for such an innocuous comment. Even if he had a fiery hatred of the name John, he wouldn't hurt her.

Ignoring the sudden intensity in Nuada's eyes, she went on, "Once, he fractured his skull and I got a headache, but it wasn't a migraine or anything. The same thing happened to me later, and he got a headache. And I found out after I…after those men…those wolves…"

She trailed off as memory rose up, dark and threatening, teeth bared and ready to sink into her jugular. She drew a swift, sharp breath.

Nuada saw her eyes go glassy, saw her sight turn inward, away from the safety of the present and back to the agony of that night in the empty subway. Her breathing went shallow, her chest barely rising with each ragged breath.

Bile rose in the prince's throat, but he swallowed it down and said, softly, "After you met me. After you saved us."

It galled him to remember he'd been rescued by a human, but he knew the words were exactly what Dylan needed, and the horrified and horrifying expression on her face sickened him.

She shook herself, gasped once, and her breathing picked up again. The color returned to her cheeks. She nodded, slowly at first, then more decisively. "Yes…yes. After you saved me," she said. He noticed she put the weight of heroism on his shoulders, as if she'd done nothing that night. "I found out that John had suffered muscle cramps and fatigue while I healed. But it's nothing…nothing strong, usually. It's not quantifiable. We can't read each other's thoughts or find each other when one of us is missing. I failed all the tests my parents put me through."

"Tests?"

"Some humans test their children for psychic ability. My theory is, mortals all have a bit of a telepathic connection to each other—hence why we have things like mob mentality. I studied the idea of a general race consciousness while I was in college."

Nuada stared at her. The Fair Folk had such a thing, a subtle linked consciousness, but humans? He'd never considered that perhaps humanity's racial cruelty and darkness might stem from this "mob mentality" Dylan spoke of. Could it be something in their blood that made mortals so vicious?

Then what of humans like Dylan? Were they not part of this mentality? Perhaps there were other mortals like this strange human, who somehow managed to slip the shackles of the racial consciousness of humankind and save themselves from the holes often found in mortal hearts. Maybe such humans could be manipulated into fixing up pieces of the world now, before he woke the Golden Army. Save the Fair Folk from having to wade through so much filth and refuse.

"But the tests are for other things—clairvoyance, foresight, empathy," Dylan continued, oblivious to his thoughts. "I don't have anything strong enough to justify any kind of training. Only my telepathy registered above a speck, and they tested that until they figured out it was just a connection to John. My parents were concerned about that," she added, "because none of the other girls had it, and they were all twins. They thought maybe it…meant something about us." The revolted look on her face told Nuada exactly what she meant. "But the people at the labs said that kind of connection was more common with fraternal than identical twins, especially if they weren't the same gender."

"Have you anything besides the Sight and your connection to your brother?"

As if those two things were somehow insignificant. The Sight in a mortal wasn't as rare as it had been before Nuada's exile, to be sure, but in those ancient days, there had been perhaps twenty or so million humans on the planet. Now there were nearly eight billion. But to find the Sight in an adult, who wasn't mad with the things she saw, and wasn't unduly afraid of the Fair Folk…Insignificant, such a thing surely wasn't.

And a connection to her brother was strangely fey-like in a human, especially as no other child in her family had such a gift. Did the woman have a fairy godparent? Such things were incredibly rare in this age of poisonous cities and murderous humans spreading like vermin, but not totally unheard of.

"A lot of the time I feel…prompted. I'll remember things at just the right time, or get the sudden urge to go somewhere or speak to someone, and later I find out something awful would've happened if I hadn't. But that's not my doing."

"Who is it, then?"

"That's God."

Nuada scoffed. So, proof that she wasn't as fey-like as he'd expected. She'd forgotten the old gods, as well. While even some fae followed the Christian deity known in the Twilight Realm as the High King of the World, that fact had always baffled and annoyed the prince. He knew that that God was real, but He was a God of the humans, not the Fae.

"Your Christian God takes no interest in mortal affairs. The Bright Ones who still reside in the supposed Christian Holy Land can attest to that."

Dylan popped the last bite of her sandwich in her mouth and drew her knees up to her chest. Chin on her folded arms, she asked, "You mean, because of things like the Crusades?"

When the prince nodded, she sighed, and the fey-like sorrow returned to her eyes. "God had no hand in that, or in any other war for land in the East. He interferes as much as He has promised to when His children let Him." Dylan sighed. "Once I turned to Him, my life improved a lot. It made the last years in the institution much easier to bear. Without my faith, I wouldn't be the woman I am. I wouldn't have been able to do the things I've done."

The crown prince of Bethmoora shook his head. "How can someone who has suffered what you've suffered, who defends my kind against mankind, believe in a deity that advocates the extermination of those who aren't like you?"

Eyes wide and guileless, she said, "I don't believe in a deity like that."

He frowned, tilting his head to study her more closely. "But you are a Christian." Not that all Christians believed such things; the fae followers of the Star Kindler, the High King of the World, didn't. But humans twisted everything until it was about hunger and destruction and hate. Even religion.

Dylan smiled, a wry smile, as if she were remembering some secret joke. "A lot of Christians wouldn't agree with you, Your Highness."

"Why is that?"

She raised her eyebrows and smiled wider. Her smile was twisted by the five thin scars slicing across her lips, but not ugly or unpleasant. Merely childlike. With an almost wicked glint in her eye, the mortal said, "I'm Mormon."

"What is that?"

"A sect of Christianity, but many don't consider it such." Her gaze turned inward, and a shadow passed over her mutilated face. The comment, and her expression, filled him with questions, but he knew pushing a woman like this for information wouldn't yield entirely successful results. Dylan pushed her thick hair back and mumbled, "I'd rather not talk about it, if that's all right with you."

"You think I'd despise you for following the Star Kindler," he hazarded, fighting back a surge of irritation. The Elven prince wasn't on even footing where this mortal was concerned, and it left him sitting uneasily in his skin, as if the world were not quite aligned properly with the rest of reality. A muscle flexed in his jaw as he concentrated on keeping his expression neutral and his tone casual. His honor did not allow him the recourse he would've otherwise preferred—using his abilities to rip through Dylan's mind. After all she'd done for him, she deserved better. Still…it galled him to have to dance around her mortal sensibilities when he wanted answers  _now_.

"I wouldn't make suppositions about the Fair Folk, but Christians generally don't pay much respect to the Lords and Ladies."

"True enough. But you do."

Her wry smile left an odd feeling in his belly. She said, "Most fey could squash me into people-pulp by batting their little gossamer eyelashes at me, Your Highness. I've known that since I saw  _Sleeping Beauty_ as a kid. I don't want to risk their wrath if I can help it." A lift of the shoulder in a shrug. "And most of them are nice enough."

" _Sleeping Beauty?"_

"A fairy tale. The Germans call them  _märchen_. I had a choice of language arts and literature avenues in college and post-grad school, so I pursued fairy tales. It was easier than obscure Brazilian literature, for example."

" _Märchen_. Stories of those who reside in Faerie."

Dylan nodded. "Roughly translated, yes."

"Tell it to me." The Elven prince smiled, a small smile—barely a quirk at the corner of his mouth—when Dylan's mouth dropped open and her eyes blew wide. Obviously she hadn't expected the request. "Tell me this story, this…'Sleeping Beauty.'"

"I'm no bard or minstrel, Your Highness. I'm not very good at telling stories. And the story would take a long time, to tell properly." She gestured almost helplessly, mentally reeling. He wanted her to tell him a story? A simple human fairy tale? Why? The idea made her head hurt.

"Then I will return tomorrow, and the next day, until the story is finished."

"But…the one who sent the leanashe! Won't they use such visits against you? What if you were tracked, or someone attacks you on your way here?"

She didn't add,  _What if someone lies in wait for you here?_  The only reason the leanashe had been able to get into her cottage was because the faery woman had feigned being injured, and Dylan had told her to come in so the mortal woman could aid her in any way possible. Once across the threshold, the soul-sucking Bright One had turned on her. Now the mortal knew to be on guard.

Dylan watched Nuada as he smirked, the epitome of smug masculine pride.

"I've been a warrior for more years than your religion has been on this earth. You were witness to my injuries at the hands of mortals, but that was only because I was using an unwieldy weapon, I was ill, and the cowards used guns. The fey don't use such contemptuous things. I wouldn't be too worried over my being injured. Now, tell me this tale, or I will not be pleased."

 _Ooh,_  the mortal thought _. And Prince Prissy-Pants returns. Not good. I'll end up dealing with an angsty Elf_. Aloud, all she said was, "There are many versions of this tale, my prince. Which would you like to hear?"

"Many versions?" When Dylan nodded, Nuada said, "Very well. I demand a story with magic, the fey folk. It must have humor, romance, and adventure. I do not wish to hear a story of a princess who falls in love with a prince after one look and they live 'happily ever after.' That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. And it cannot begin with 'once upon a time,' either."

"I know such a story. I'd have to read it to you, though."

"Go, then, and fetch the thing if you have it."

Dylan got up and went to one of the rosewood bookcases lining the living room walls. Nuada could hear her mumbling as she moved through her books, "MacDonald…no. McCaffrey…McKiernan…ah, McKinley!  _Beauty_ , no, not that one.  _The Blue Sword_ , no… _Deerskin_ , that's not it, either…where is… _Rose Daughter_ , no…should be right…oh! There you are.  _Spindle's End_."

He didn't watch her take her seat in front of the fireplace, only listened to the soft, almost soothing swish-swish of her skirts on the stone floor and the shush-shush of her leather slippers as she walked slowly back to his side. She settled herself in front of the hearth with a rustle of skirts and the soft hushing noise of someone turning a page in a book. Nuada leaned back and waited.

" _The magic in that country was so thick and tenacious that it settled over the land like chalk-dust and over floors and shelves like slightly sticky plaster-dust (Housecleaners in that country earned unusually good wages). If you lived in the country, you had to de-scale your kettle of its encrustation of magic at least once a week, because if you didn't, you might find yourself pouring hissing snakes or pond slime into your teapot instead of water."_

Dylan fell into the familiar cadence of Robin McKinley's words, remembering as she read how the story was supposed to go. First a bit of exposition on the country itself, and how fish supposedly didn't exist. Remembering the author's words on the subject of water, fish, and swimming made her mouth curve into a grin that Nuada, not privy to her thoughts, marveled at. It was the most carefree expression he'd ever seen on her face. Then the next words came, and he wondered if perhaps she were grinning because of the book.

" _It didn't have to be anything scary or unpleasant, like snakes or slime, especially in a cheerful household—magic tended to reflect the atmosphere of the place in which it found itself—but if you want a cup of tea, a cup of lavender-and-gold pansies or ivory thimbles is unsatisfactory. And while the pansies—put dry in a vase—would probably last a day, looking like ordinary pansies, before they went grayish-dun and collapsed into magic dust, something like an ivory thimble would begin to smudge and crumble as soon as you picked it up…_ _"_

So the night went on, and the words came like the scent of apple blossoms, or the  _rush-rustle_  of pine needles as a stag picked his way through the woods. Nuada turned and watched her, watched the firelight dancing across her hands cradling the book, creating shadows beneath her eyes and at the side of her nose, in the hollow of her throat.

Memories of his mother and sister, sweet memories of reading before the fire on cold winter nights, made his heart ache, but a strange contentment settled over him as well, easing the pain in his heart. Dylan's voice lulled him, a gentle drone unfolding a story unlike any mortal tale he'd ever heard.

Thus the night passed.

_**End of Book 1: Underground** _

_**Our story continues in Book 2: Between the Realms** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References Made in This Chapter:
> 
> \- The main ingredient in aspirin comes from willow bark.
> 
> \- Dylan's house is inspired by 3 places. The Globe Theatre is made of stone, wood, straw, and mortar, made in the same way the original was put together back in the 17th century - down to the wooden pegs instead of metal nails. The only "human" metal I saw in the place was the wire-mesh they use to hold the thatch down so it doesn't blow away.
> 
> The other 2 places are houses of people my dad actually knows. There was a man who lived in a house entirely powered by wind, water, and solar power (which is amazing). His house was made of red sandstone. And there's another man whose house is built into the side of a mountain, made of timber and stone (no concrete, no cement, nothing).
> 
> \- Yōsei is the Japanese word for "fairy/fairies." This usage in this chapter specifically refers to Japanese fairies. See also: Bright Ones, Kindly Ones, Shining Throng, Wee Folk, Hidden People, Fee-Faire, Fayre, Tuatha De, Tylwyth Teg, Aos Si, Sidhe, etc.
> 
> \- Baku are good Japanese "beasts" that devour nightmares.
> 
> \- Wee Winks: as far as I know, there's no such thing as a Wee Wink. I created them based on the story of Wee Willie Winkie, who looks like a little boy in a nightshirt and cap carrying a candle. I believe (I may be remembering incorrectly) that Wee Willie Winkie has connections to sleep and dreams. In this universe, the kiss of a Wee Wink is supposed to bestow sweet dreams.
> 
> \- I chose the name Ariel for Dylan's secretary because of the sprite from Shakespeare's The Tempest. Ariel's last name is Smith (after the air-sprite driver in Mercedes Lackey's "Cinderella" novel, Phoenix and Ashes).
> 
> \- The phrase "shell shocked" was used to describe a lot of WWI/WWII veterans. This term described men who suffered what would later be called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
> 
> \- People actually do, in some places, leave milk and bread, porridge, or other nice things on their doorsteps for the Faeries.
> 
> \- "Lesser" Fae means things without much power, like brownies, gnomes, will-o-the-wisps, etc. "Greater" Fae would be, like, Elves or woodmen or mermaids or something like that.
> 
> \- A rag rug is a rug made of braided/knotted rags or cloth scraps. They were really big in the 16-19th centuries.
> 
> \- Because Dylan is LDS (Mormon), she can't drink alcohol, tea, or coffee (which is why she asked). And only an idiot accepts a drink from a Faerie without making sure it's not enchanted first (seeing as how you're not supposed to eat or drink while in a faery hill).
> 
> \- I have a special place in my heart for the fear-darrig, a Scottish bogle that feeds on fear unless pissed off. Then it eats you. A dearg will invite you to sit at its fire (or similar thing), and if you accept, will ask you to tell it a story. If you refuse to go to its fire, if you refuse to tell the story, or if it doesn't like the story you tell, it will cook you and eat you (while you're still alive). If it likes your story, it will bless you with luck and stuff. Also called a far darrig, fear darrig, far dearg, and fear dearg.
> 
> \- Dryads are Greek tree nymphs.
> 
> \- Naiads are Greek fresh water nymphs (oceanids being saltwater nymphs). There are different types of naiads based on what they are bound to: crinaeae (fountains and wells), eleionomae (marshes), pegaeae (springs), limnades (lakes), potameides (various types of rivers), etc.
> 
> \- Clairvoyance is the psychic ability to see things that are happening far away. Precognition is the ability to see things in the future (foresight) and retrocognition is the ability to see that which has transpired in the past (hindsight as applied to psychic ability). Empathy is the ability to sense other people's emotions (receptive empathy) or influence them (projective empathy).
> 
> \- LDS doctrine states that they (we) believe the Holy Ghost prompts those with whom He abides when they're in danger or there is something they need to do, either to help themselves or to help others.
> 
> \- The Lords and Ladies is another term for Faeries.
> 
> \- Germans actually refer to the standard faery tales like "Snow White," "Cinderella," and "Rumpelstiltskin" as märchen. It actually means "those who reside in Faerie" but I wanted to use both definitions.
> 
> \- Robin McKinley is one of those fairytale writing goddesses. Married to Peter Dickinson (that charming gentleman who wrote AFlightof Dragons and stars in the animated Rankin Bass film of the same name), she has written many retold faery tales: Beauty("Beauty and the Beast"), Deerskin("Donkeyskin"), A Door in the Hedge(multiple), A Knot in the Grain(multiple),Rose Daughter("Beauty and the Beast"), and Spindle's End("Sleeping Beauty"), as well as two anthologies about elementals (Waterand Fire) and two books about very strong female warriors (The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword).

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a prequel/companion series to Hellboy II: the Golden Army, with an alternate ending to the movie. I don't like that Nuala and Nuada die. That's just... freaking ridiculous. I mean... ugh. I hated that Nuala killed herself, so that Abe will have to go to therapy. I hated that Nuada died, because surely he was redeemable, a man of his honor and greatness and... I dunno. I was all depressed throughout the movie because the villain was someone who was complaining about all the things I whine about all the time (people not appreciating the magic and wonder in the world, too many parking lots and malls when there ought to be trees and flowers and parks, that kind of thing) and then he freaking up and dies!
> 
> Argh! Stupid Hellboy movie script writers! Are you all on acid or something?
> 
> *insert scream of intense frustration here*
> 
> So yeah, that's why the ending in this fic will be different - I hope. If it doesn't fit, then I'm screwed, but I'm gonna do my freaky best. So yeah, prequel/companion/rewrite of the second live-actionHellboy movie to salvage the ending, the villain, and the love interest of a hero. I'm going to try to keep things as close to the movie as possible, though, and I am desperately attempting to avoid the dreaded Mary-Sue.


End file.
